Government press secretary Mandy Johnston has paid an agreed sum of costs to the Star newspaper after losing a High Court libel action against that paper.
Legal sources estimated that Ms Johnston paid out some €50,000 in costs to the newspaper, but the amount has not been disclosed.
The Longford-born press secretary also had to meet the costs of her own legal team incurred after the two-day hearing in the High Court last year.
High Court Taxing Master Charles Moran was yesterday told the costs settlement with the Star has been implemented and the matter could now be struck out.
Ms Johnston had sued the newspaper and journalist John Donlon arising from the publication on September 14th, 1996 of an article by Mr Donlon which, she claimed, would lead people to assume she was a person of "low moral calibre".
However, a High Court jury in February 2004 decided the article, either by itself or in the context of photographs beside it, did not mean Ms Johnston was a person of low moral character.