Salaries for members of the Northern Ireland Assembly have cost more than €17 million since the Executive collapsed in January 2017.
The figure was confirmed as Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith appeared a parliamentary committee this morning.
Representatives in Stormont have not been sitting for over 1,000 days, and despite an election in March 2017 efforts to form a new Executive have repeatedly stalled since then.
MLAs are typically paid £48,000, but that has been cut by 25% to £35,888 due to the ongoing impasse.
Addressing the parliamentary committee today, Mr Smith said the current political situation in the North is a "tragedy".
After the sum of £14.9 million for MLAs' salaries was confirmed, the Conservative minister stressed: "I think these sums of money for an institution that is not doing its job is unacceptable... completely unacceptable."
He said he would consider cutting the salaries further if talks in Northern Ireland do not go the way he wants, although also defended the constituency work MLAs are continuing to do.
Mr Smith stressed: "The other options for Northern Ireland governance are significantly worse - we have to do everything we can to persuade MLAs and political leaders to talk to me, talk to the Tánaiste if they want to... ensure they get the executive up-and-running."
He also confirmed to MPs that a number of issues remain - including around the Irish language and the petition of concern for the smaller parties.
He suggested: "I genuinely think all of those issues are surmountable.
"I think the current challenge [is] some parties wanting to see the direction of travel on the European issue, and that's why I really, really want [the Brexit deal] bill to start and get through.
"The other area is trust. The second tragedy of this lack of an Executive is that we have extremely talented political leaders and MLAs, but the trust that binds people to run a democratic institution and a government is very weak."
He added that the trust between the different Northern Irish parties is "not where it needs to be".
