O'Donnell takes Supreme Court seat

Senior counsel Donal O'Donnell has made the declaration required by the Constitution for appointment as a Supreme Court judge at a formal ceremony in the court today.

Mr O'Donnell made the declaration before the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, and seven Supreme Court judges during a brief ceremony in the court which was packed with family members, friends and colleagues from the Bar.

The Chief Justice then formally handed Mr O'Donnell his warrant of appointment after which he welcomed his new colleague to be bench and wished him well.

The attendance included Mr O'Donnell's father Turlough, a former Judge of the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland; his wife, artist Mary Rose Binchy; their four children, Eoin, Siuin, Aoife and Kevin and his brother Turlough O'Donnell SC, former chairman of the Bar Council.

Also present were the Attorney General Paul Gallagher and Law Society director general Ken Murphy and a large number of his senior counsel colleagues, including Brian Murray SC and Gerard Hogan SC.

Mr O'Donnell is among a small number of senior counsel nominated straight from the Bar to the Supreme Court and joins Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, who was in 2000 also nominated straight from the Bar, on the Supreme Court bench.

A native of Belfast, Mr O'Donnell (51) was nominated by the Government as its choice to fill the seat left vacant by the appointment of Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns as President of the High Court. Mr Justice Kearns remains an ex-officio member of the Supreme Court.

Mr O'Donnell is regarded as one of the foremost constitutional law experts at the Bar and frequently appeared for the State in several high-profile constitutional cases, including the recent case to decide the fate of three frozen embryos.

He represented the Government in the case before the European Court of Human Rights where three Irish women are challenging the ban on abortion and also appeared for the State in the challenge to the Oireachtas inquiry into Judge Brian Curtin.

Mr O'Donnell also represented The Irish Times in its successful appeal to the Supreme Court on its right to protect its sources, although the Supreme Court awarded costs against the paper because of the destruction of the documents at the centre of the case.

Mr O'Donnell studied law in UCD and the King's Inns, and also completed an LLM in the University of Virginia. He was called to the Bar of Ireland in 1982 and to the Northern Ireland Bar in 1989. He became a senior counsel in 1995 and is a Bencher of the King's Inns.

He is a member of the Law Reform Commission, the Commercial Court Users Group and the Royal Irish Academy Committee on the Origins of the Irish Constitution. He is also Chairman of the Editorial Committee Bar Review and a board member of Our Lady's Hospice, Harold's Cross.