The appointment of Mr Frank Clarke SC, and Mr John MacMenamin SC, to the High Court, contradicts the view that governments appoint party loyalists. Both have a long, if loose, association with Fine Gael.
Mr Clarke is one of the best-known barristers in the State. He has been involved in many tribunals and high-profile cases and is friendly to the media, appearing this week in an RTÉ documentary on the Bar.
He was born in 1951 and attended Drimnagh Castle School before going to UCD to study economics and maths. He studied at the King's Inns before being called to the Bar in 1973.
He became a senior counsel in 1985 and quickly had a reputation as one of the brightest lawyers of his generation, in a practice which dealt in commercial, constitutional and family law. He has been external counsel to the Laffoy inquiry on child abuse, now the Ryan inquiry, and has represented the Flood tribunal in its case against Mr Liam Lawlor.
He was chairman of the Bar Council from 1993 to 1995, and famously revealed his considerable earnings, before barristers' earnings became a matter of public discussion.
He owns "a couple" of racehorses and is deputy chief steward of the Turf Club. He is married to Ms Jackie Hayden, an academic in Trinity College, and they have a son and a daughter.