No one can be found to say a bad word, on or off the record, about the chairman of the second payments-to-politicians tribunal, Mr Justice Michael Moriarty, known to his friends as Mossie.
When he was selected to head the second such tribunal his appointment was universally welcomed, and it was expected he would deal with the politically highly charged tribunal without fear or favour.
But the setback in the Supreme Court this week will not affect his reputation, which was founded on years of sterling work in the Circuit Court and a high-profile, if short, High Court career before he was appointed to this tribunal. "The view of him in the legal street has not changed because of the judgment," said a colleague.
It indicates the esteem in which he is held across the political spectrum that he was first appointed to the bench by a Labour-Fine Gael coalition and to chair the tribunal by a Fianna Fail-PD Government.
His appointment to chair the tribunal came after a career on the bench which earned him plaudits from all who came in contact with him. "He is very highly respected at the criminal bar," said one barrister. Another said: "He is a model of informality and has an excellent relationship with barristers across the political and gender boundaries. There are no angles to him. Everyone thinks he is excellent."
Barristers like to appear before him. "He is extremely personable, not at all arrogant," said one who specialises in family law. "He rarely sat in family law in the High Court, but when he did he gave it his absolute attention and was a lovely judge to be in front of. He gave a very detailed judgment."
A senior counsel who is generally caustic about members of the judiciary said simply: "He's a great fellow."
He was appointed to the High Court two years ago after almost 10 years as a Circuit Court judge on the most gruelling beat of them all, Court 14 of the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. There he had a reputation for conscientiousness, fairness and compassion far beyond the bounds of duty. "He brought a new level of detailed consideration to the Circuit Court," said one barrister.
His attitude to sentencing was scrupulous and painstaking. He regularly deferred sentencing until he had studied probation officers' reports, often taking up to 50 home with him at weekends.
While always remaining conscious of his obligations to society and the judicial system, he also took pains to understand where those accused of the crimes were coming from. He was rare among the judiciary in regularly visiting prisons and talking to those he had sentenced. He was therefore respected even among criminals.
This shows another side to his character, his compassion and concern with people marginalised by society. It also emerged in his work on the Lord Mayor's Commission on Crime, which he chaired and which reported in 1994. The report emphasised the fact that most victims of crime were living in deprived areas and scotched the view that they were mainly members of the middle class preyed upon by criminals emerging from such areas to commit crimes.
Mr Justice Moriarty was chairman of the Catholic Youth Council for over six years and was closely involved in its activities, especially among deprived young people.
He was brought on to the council by his friend, Father Martin Clarke, now the spokesman for the Hierarchy. They have been friends since childhood, when they were in the same class at Willow Park, Blackrock, Co Dublin, the preparatory school for Blackrock College.
Michael Moriarty was a boarder until 1960, when his parents moved to Dublin from Belfast, where his father was a doctor. Another classmate was Ruairi Quinn.
HIS future career was indicated at an early age. "At about eight or nine he was emerging as a very significant wordsmith," said Father Clarke. "It was seen in his ability to write, which was way ahead of his peers. That translated itself into his ability at debating at second level and later in university."
He was also interested in sport in school, where he was a "pretty good" cricketer and an "average" soccer-player. He also played rugby and continued to do so when he became a barrister. He played for the Irish bar in matches against the north-eastern circuit of the English bar.
He had a good singing voice at school and was involved in school dramatic productions. This interest has survived as an enthusiasm for opera and he can still be prevailed upon to sing in public.
"At the annual dinner of the Dublin Circuit, a much-requested number was the duet between His Honour Judge Liam Devally and His Honour Judge Michael Moriarty, rendering the version of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Bold Gendarme they had rewritten from a judicial point of view," recalls one lawyer friend.
The same friend stressed that at dinner in the Moriarty house the lawyers would be heavily outnumbered by non-lawyers. The judge enjoys "a nice bottle of wine" but would be too modest to describe himself as a wine connoisseur.
In one respect his appointment was something of a surprise. His work in the Circuit Court meant that his expertise was in criminal law. Following his appointment to the High Court much of his time was spent on two high-profile cases; the Rocca/Ryan civil assault case and the De Rossa libel trial, neither of them involving commercial law. Commercial and financial law is at the heart of this tribunal.
Michael Moriarty is so widely described as exceptionally nice, courteous, kind - the word "saint" was even used - that the question was raised as to whether he would be tough enough for the job of ensuring that all the necessary information would be extracted at the tribunal from what might prove recalcitrant witnesses.
That question has been answered by events in which he was, if anything, too successful at obtaining information. That information will now have to be sought again in a more circuitous way.
He is married to Ms Mary Irvine SC, who cannot appear before him because she is his wife. They have a son and two daughters.
"I'm afraid he is a bit of a do-gooder," she acknowledges with a laugh. "He's the sort of man who's very accommodating and very polite. But there's a very tough streak underneath. He has his own way of manipulating people. It's a slow turn of the screw."
That screw has a number of rotations yet to turn in his job of finding the truth.