Profile: Judge Brian Curtin's successful career as a barrister and Circuit Court judge crashed when his home was raided in May 2002 as part of Operation Amethyst.
Only eight months earlier, in November 2001, he was appointed by the Government as a Circuit Court judge. This followed many years as a barrister with a thriving practice on the southwest circuit, based in Tralee.
Three months before that, he had been appointed to the Refugee Appeals Tribunal although he had not heard any cases and did not receive any fees during the period.
Judge Curtin (54) was born and educated in south London. His parents, an emigrant family, instilled in him a love of Tralee. His peers remember him arriving at Trinity College Dublin in the early 1970s with a strong Kerry accent.
At Trinity he joined the university's Fianna Fáil cumann, as well as the students union and debating societies. He studied at King's Inns and qualified as a barrister in 1976. Several high- profile cases followed, including a brief at the Kerry Babies tribunal.
Described as affable and gregarious by former college friends, he was remembered later by colleagues in the legal profession as an ambitious and accomplished lawyer.
In more recent years he was an unsuccessful Progressive Democrats candidate in Tralee in the local elections.
He was also a frequent broadcaster on Radio Kerry, analysing media coverage of news events. He was a keen amateur actor in theatre groups in the Tralee area.
On his first appearance before Tralee District Court on a charge of possession of child pornography in January 2003, his solicitor was granted a three- month adjournment on the grounds that Judge Curtin was unfit to attend.
He was acquitted of possessing child pornography in April 2004.
In the subsequent legal proceedings relating to preventing an investigation into whether he should be impeached by the Oireachtas, his legal team submitted details of his health.
Shortly after his acquittal, he had sought admission to hospital on May 7th, 2004, suffering from stress, depression and extreme anxiety, but he was not admitted, according to a physician's report.
The day after, he was charged with drink-driving in Tralee.
The judge then spent almost two months in St John of God's psychiatric hospital in Dublin. When he left hospital, he went on holiday abroad.
When his drink-driving case came to trial in December 2004, he pleaded guilty and was disqualified from driving for two years, fined €250 and had his licence endorsed.
His solicitor handed five medical reports to the court, including one from a consultant cardiologist at the Mater Hospital, Dublin, dated May 2002, five days before the raid on his home.
It advised that Judge Curtin should stay off alcohol.
He has been paid his full salary of €130,000 a year since the start of inquiries and he is accruing pension rights.