A Stormont department's spending in a failed legal battle with a whistleblowing vet has reached around £277,000 with further costs still to be counted.
Dr Tamara Bronckaers was awarded a £1.25million payout in a high-profile employment case against the Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs (Daera).
An industrial tribunal last year found the senior vet, who had raised concerns about animal welfare and meat traceability, had been constructively dismissed from her job.
The department dropped an appeal against the decision last month and Dr Bronckaers received an unreserved apology.
Her lawyers had described the payout as the largest of its kind ever awarded in Northern Ireland.
However, legal costs are still being racked up by the department in the aftermath of the case.
Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots detailed the spending by his department in response to an Assembly question from SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone.
The DUP minister said: "The total legal expenditure on the industrial tribunal case between my department and Dr Tamara Bronckaers has not been finalised at this stage as there are outstanding invoices and legal work continues on the case as it has not been discharged.
"The latest estimate of costs to the end of April 2022 is approximately £277,000. This covers the industrial tribunal and the Court of Appeal case.
"In addition, the industrial tribunal settlement to Dr Bronckaers of £1,250,000 included an amount for the claimant's legal fees."
Dr Bronckaers, who worked for the department's Veterinary Service Animal Health Group, had raised concerns about serious breaches of animal welfare legislation.
She also highlighted traceability issues within the meat supply chain related to the deletion of records on the movement of sold cattle between farms.
The senior vet resigned after claiming management ignored her concerns and subjected her to unfair treatment for flagging the issues.
Daera has commissioned PwC to conduct an external independent review of how the department dealt with the issues raised by Dr Bronckaers.
Last month Dr Bronckaers said the past few years had been "extremely harrowing for me and my family".
She said the outcome of the case had been "a long time coming", but added: "I can move on in the knowledge that I did what was right."
"I witnessed first-hand animals suffering unnecessarily and believe that over a five-year period in excess of 20,000 animals were involved in deleted moves which would have had significant implications for traceability within the supply chain," she said.
"I strongly believed that the department was failing in its duty to protect animal welfare and therefore I couldn’t continue doing a job that I wasn’t being allowed to carry out ethically.
"I couldn’t sit back and watch these breaches persist."
Read more: Former DAERA employee Dr Tamara Bronckaers awarded £1.25m pay-out and an apology
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