Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The costs to end-October are of the order of €40.8 million, but third party costs have not yet been addressed. Therefore, the ultimate cost of the tribunal is not yet clear. The indications we have had from correspondence, which I brought to the notice of the House on a previous occasion when we discussed this matter, was that the chairman felt that the cross-examination of Mr. Andersen would be important. That cross-examination has now been completed and I understand the tribunal is now moving to finalise the report. Two weeks were spent taking evidence from Mr. Andersen and Mr. Justice Moriarty has since indicated to my Department that before the final stages of the tribunal's report can be mapped out, he must consider Mr. Andersen's evidence, both as a body of material in itself and in the context of the substantial volume of earlier evidence concerning the GSM-2 process. That is the current position and we hope the matter will be dealt with as expeditiously as possible.

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