More than 240 files of documents obtained by the tribunal's legal team had to be returned to their owners last year after the Supreme Court quashed a number of orders of discovery made against Mr Charles Haughey.
In his opening statement, Mr John Coughlan SC said the tribunal had to carry out a substantial amount of administrative work to deal with consequences of the Supreme Court ruling on July 28th last.
He said the consequences were threefold. First, all documents produced to the tribunal on foot of the quashed orders were returned within two days.
Second, documents which were produced to the tribunal on foot of orders which were not quashed also were returned unless the persons who supplied them consented to their retention.
Third, all inquiries made and information generated on foot of orders were ignored by the tribunal.
In total, the tribunal returned 221 files in whole and 21 files in part.
Up to the occasion of the Supreme Court judgment, the tribunal had made 41 orders of discovery, 375 files of bank-related documents had been produced and scrutinised, and more than 250 people had been identified as potentially of assistance to the tribunal. The tribunal wrote to about 200 of these people to seek their consent for the retention of documents.
In light of the judgment, the tribunal held a public hearing on September 24th last, giving its interpretation of the terms of reference and indicating its procedure for investigations.
Since November 3rd last, the tribunal has made 54 orders of discovery and has assembled a further 144 files of documents.
Further inquiries have been made with Government Departments and agencies. This work included the making of one further order which resulted in the production of 132 files.