The Government appointed a selection committee to draw up a shortlist of names for appointment to the commission.
The selection committee comprised:
Dr T.K. Whitaker (chairman); Ms Inez McCormack, president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions; Mr Frank Murray, of the Civil Service Appointments Commission; Ms Mary Murphy, of the Society of St Vincent de Paul; Mr Martin O'Brien, of the Belfast-based Campaign for the Administration of Justice.
The selection committee produced a shortlist of 16, of whom the following eight received unanimous priority recommendation:
Mr Martin Collins, an activist with the Traveller movement; Mr Michael Farrell, a solicitor and former co-chairman of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties; Mr Cearbhall O'Meara, a consultant; Mr Gerard Quinn, a law lecturer at UCD; Ms Ursula Barry, an economics lecturer at UCD; Ms Clodagh MacRory, a lawyer in Northern Ireland; Ms Nuala Kelly, of the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas; Ms Fionnuala Ni Aolain, a law lecturer at the University of Ulster.
The eight others named by the selection committee were:
Ms Rosemary Byrne, a TCD law lecturer; Mr Robert Daly, a specialist in mental health from Cork; Ms Suzanne Egan, a UCD law lecturer specialising in refugee law; Mr Peter Finlay SC, a former refugee appeals adjudicator; Ms Jane Liddy, a human rights specialist; Mr Brian McKeown, of the International Development Trust; Mr Seamus O'Cinneida, a social policy lecturer; Ms Catherine Zappone, a TCD lecturer in ethics and gender.
The Government appointed the following members to the commission, whose president is Mr Justice Barrington:
Prof William Binchy, of Trinity College Dublin law department; Ms Olive Braiden, a former director of the Rape Crisis Centre; Mr Robert Daly; Ms Suzanne Egan; Ms Jane Liddy; Ms Fionnuala Ni Aolain; Mr Tom O'Higgins, of the development agency Concern; Mr Mervyn Taylor, a former government minister.