Ms Justice Caroline Costello is set to be appointed as the president of the Court of Appeal, the country’s second-highest judicial office.
The post became vacant following the retirement of Mr Justice George Birmingham last month. The Government made the decision to nominate her to the position during the summer.
Having graduated from University College Dublin in 1982 with a BA in History and Classics, Ms Justice Costello later attended the University of Oxford and the King’s Inns. She is a barrister since 1988 and had a practice largely focused on commercial, banking and insolvency law.
She was appointed a judge of the High Court in 2014 and heard many high-profile cases, including bankruptcy proceedings involving developer Sean Dunne. Ms Justice Costello has been an Appeal Court judge since 2018.
‘I’m hoping at least one girl who is on the fence about reporting her violent boyfriend ... will read about my case’
What Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens promised in 2020 - and how much they delivered
Ciara Mageean: ‘I just felt numb. It wasn’t even sadness, it was just emptiness’
Restaurateur Gráinne O’Keefe: I cut out sugar from my diet and here’s how it went
She presided over the hearing of mammoth litigation against Facebook arising from complaints to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner by Austrian lawyer and data privacy activist Max Schrems concerning EU-US data transfers.
She made a reference of key issues in that litigation to the Court of Justice of the EU which resulted in a landmark ruling on privacy rights.
Ms Justice Costello is the daughter of the former attorney general and president of the High Court Declan Costello and the granddaughter of former Fine Gael taoiseach John A Costello.
The formal appointment of Ms Justice Costello as president of the Court of Appeal will take place at Áras an Uachtaráin on Thursday, October 3rd.*
* This article was amended on Saturday, September 14th, to reflect the date of the appointment
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
