This article explores the relationship between the American Bar Association and the Irish legal professions in the twentieth century. It focuses in particular on two instances when the ABA visited Ireland; the first in 1924 and the second in 1957. Both were significant for different reasons. In 1924 the new Irish Free State had emerged from a period of violence to the formation of a new system of courts, new judicial appointments and other changes. The visit was an opportunity to demonstrate internationally that the rule of law had been reestablished. In 1957 the U.S. Supreme Court had delivered a number of significant civil rights judgments and the visit of Chief Justice Earl Warren to Ireland seems to have fed into the growing interest in American constitutional interpretation. The 1957 visit was also an example of the kind of soft diplomacy which further strengthened Irish-American relations.
Twenty years after the enactment of the Interpretation Act 2005, the Act's impact on statutory interpretation in Ireland warrants close scrutiny. This paper focuses on ss.5 and 6 of the Act, which were considered the most significant innovations and remain particularly interesting approaches in comparison with other interpretation acts in force in various jurisdictions. Section 5 establishes fundamental rules of interpretation, serving as the basis for all interpretative exercises, whereas s.6 is applied sparingly. Both enhance legal certainty and transparency. Drawing on over 130 judgments, this paper examines how these provisions have been applied and their contribution to consistency and predictability in Irish law. By situating the Irish experience within broader debates on interpretation acts and statutory interpretation, the study offers insights of both domestic and comparative relevance, highlighting the continuing evolution and significance of Ireland's regulatory framework.
This article considers how a gender-neutral approach to sentencing perpetuates inequality and why gender must then be accounted for during the sentencing process, so that women in the criminal justice system are not further disadvantaged by reason of their gender. The challenges experienced by women in the broader criminal justice system, as well as inconsistencies in sentencing practice, are each discussed. The article then sets out legal bases for considering gender as a factor within the sentencing process, including the constitutional principles of equality and proportionality, the public sector equality and human rights duty and international human rights law. This article therefore concludes that any forthcoming sentencing guidelines should adopt a gender-sensitive approach, both in order to comply with constitutional, national and international law and to promote substantive justice for women in the criminal justice system.
In 2025, the Irish government and the opposition moved to answer calls for the State to legislate for the removal of guardianship rights from a parent-guardian convicted of the murder or manslaughter of their child's other parent-guardian. The Fianna F & aacute;il/Fine Gael/Independent coalition government introduced the General Scheme of the Guardianship of Infants (Amendment) Bill 2025, while the Social Democrats introduced a Private Members Bill, titled the Guardianship of Infants (Amendment) Bill 2025. This article critiques, and contrasts, these two relatively recent legislative proposals, neither of which is yet enacted, before recommending a blended approach to ensure that the best of both draft pieces of legislation is ultimately enacted, and is constitutionally sound. Such legislation would proportionately achieve the dual goals of preserving the constitutional status of married parents, and mothers, while vindicating the best interests of the child by enabling a court to interfere with the ability of such parent-guardians to exercise their guardianship rights in cases where they are convicted of domestic homicide or other serious offences against the child's other guardian(s).
The Central Bank (Individual Accountability Framework) Act 2023 introduced an individual accountability regime with the objective of improving culture and accountability and restoring trust in the financial services sector and, in particular, the banking sector. This article proposes the introduction of an Individual Accountability Framework Sandbox, to support this regime and optimise its efficiency. Unlike typical sandboxes, which test new and innovative products, this innovative sandbox would provide firms and regulators with the space and opportunity to experiment and collaborate in the design of solutions to complex and difficult problems that arise in firms. In light of ongoing efforts to reform financial services at a national and supranational level, and continuing debates internationally about how best to develop a culture of compliance in financial services, this sandbox also constitutes a timely and useful model for other jurisdictions such as the UK, Australia and Singapore, where similar accountability regimes exist.
The power to dismiss a claim for want of prosecution where there has been undue delay on the part of a plaintiff is a significant one which plays an important role in ensuring that the judicial system functions in a fair manner. Clearly there is a balance to be struck as between protecting the rights of plaintiffs and defendants in exercising this jurisdiction. Differing views have been expressed in the judgments of the Supreme Court in Kirwan v Connors [2025] IESC 21 about the source of the jurisdiction to dismiss claims on grounds of delay. However, the majority have agreed that the test for dismissal on this basis should be altered to place greater weight on the passage of time as a factor. While the primary focus on the lapse of time involved should bring more certainty to this area of the law, some discretion as to how the jurisdiction to dismiss should be exercised will inevitably remain.
The Great Famine (1845-52) devastated the population and the economy of much of Ireland. However, Ireland's chartered bank, joint stock banks and private banks survived the disaster. Significant failures only occurred in the savings bank sector. The laws regulating Ireland's banks insulated the majority of them from the effects of the Great Famine at the price of rendering them unable to assist in relieving the poverty, misery and death that occurred. The different regulatory framework for Irish savings banks rendered them vulnerable to fraudulent managers and cashiers. British monetary policy, in the form of the Bank Charter Acts of 1844-45 and the UK's legislation on trustees savings banks were both inapposite for the needs of the Irish population. A financial crisis in England in 1847, combined with economic ideology and prejudice to leave practically all but the merchant classes without access to the needed financial services.
This study examines Art.17.1.2 degrees of the Constitution, which states that the legislation required to give effect to the financial resolutions of each year must be enacted within that year. It is argued that "Financial Resolutions" refers to the historic practice of requiring Dail resolutions to be passed as a first step, upon which subsequent expenditure and taxation legislation was founded. If that argument is correct, then the constitutionality of the Central Fund (Permanent Provisions) Act 1965 may be queried.
Ireland and Northern Ireland have along, and often shared, history of feminist legal activism, yet a systematic integration of this history, of feminist legal theory or feminist pedagogy across the law schools on the island, is yet to happen. Law remains widely understood as a doctrinal, neutral, elitist concern, at a remove from society. Our survey of Irish law schools, (including both academic law schools and professional training bodies) carried out in summer 2024, as part of the Doing Feminist Legal Work (DFLW) network, showed that feminist legal work is routinely absent from law schools' core curriculum and students can graduate from law school unequipped to identify and critique the gendered nature of law. We argue for a conceptual shift in how women's contributions to law are understood and included in legal education. In this article, we contextualise the existing landscape of pedagogical practice, research, and materials across the island within the historic under-representation of women from the spaces that create, apply and academically scrutinise law. We contemplate how a distinct form of feminist legal pedagogical practice could be established across the island, that is both local in its valuing of experiential feminist legal work on the island and transnational in its shared learning from wider feminist legal pedagogical practice. DFLW is a network of feminist legal scholars, activists and practitioners interested in Ireland and Northern Ireland, which was established following Irish Research Council Shared Island funding in 2022.1 It builds on existing, albeit ad hoc, North/South and East/West collaborations, and has developed workshops and best practice guides on feminist pedagogical practice to shift understandings of legal education on this island.(2)
This article develops a framework for using the concept of dignity in constitutional rights adjudication in light of the Supreme Court's ruling in Doe v The Commissioner ofAn Garda S & iacute;och & aacute;na. It addresses two central ambiguities. Firstly, it explores the meaning of dignity as a contested concept in Irish constitutional jurisprudence and identifies candidate conceptions that emerge from the doctrine. Secondly, it addresses a question raised in Doe that remains unanswered: should dignity fulfil the role of a constitutional right or a constitutional value? The article argues that the framing of dignity as a constitutional right in the Irish context should be rejected. On the other hand, rather than thinking of dignity as a constitutional value, it is argued that dignity is better thought of as a constitutional commitment. This framing enables dignity to provide an overarching normative orientation for contextual judicial deliberation rather than a fixed principle applied deductively to decision-making.
This article presents the outcome of an extended investigation into the establishment and maintenance of the Palles Library Collection. The historical background to this early 1920s philanthropic gift by Archbishop William Walsh is set against the rediscovery in 2023 of the original trust deed and book inventory. The discovery casts fresh light upon a well-known controversy between University College Dublin (UCD) students and UCD relating to a breach of the Palles trust. New access to the office of the Attorney General files recording the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests' certification of the case along with author interviews with those having firsthand knowledge of the Palles affair gives both a rich insight into student-university tensions but also highlights the importance of philanthropic gifts to public education. We conclude with archival work enabling the authors in conjunction with the UCD Library to reconstruct, for the first time since its donation, a definitive account of the content of the Palles Collection.
This article examines the rise and fall of the arm's length principle (ALP) within State aid investigations carried out by the European Commission (Commission). Over a 10-year period starting in 2013, the Commission carried out investigations into alleged State aid granted by different Member States to high-profile taxpayers such as Apple, Amazon and others. The Commission found that these Member States had granted unlawful State aid, and ordered them to recover significant sums as allegedly unpaid taxes. The Commission's analysis relied heavily on novel arguments invoking ALP as a State aid tool. Although initially successful before the General Court of the European Union, the Commission's analysis was ultimately rejected by the Court of Justice of the European Union on appeal. This article traces the rise and fall of ALP as a State aid tool, and assesses the implications for future State aid cases.
Under s.228(1) (b) of the Companies Act 2014, company directors owe a fiduciary duty to their company to act honestly and responsibly in relation to the conduct of the affairs of the company. The duty to act honestly and responsibly in relation to the conduct of the affairs of the company is considered and analysed in this article. This article finds there are positives gained from the creation of the duty to act honestly and responsibly in relation to the conduct of the affairs of the company, such as triggering the enforcement of expectations of honesty and responsibility beyond insolvency and allowing for direct financial gain to the company for a lack of honesty or responsibility. However, this article also considers some circularity arising from the history, meaning and enforcement of the duty to act honestly and responsibly in relation to the conduct of the affairs of the company which may impact on its definition.
Ireland is anomalous among its international common law counterparts and fellow EU Member States in its continued prohibition of third-party litigation funding despite the access to justice benefits it may yield. Although the future role of commercial funding as an aspect of the Irish legal landscape is yet to be determined, a development of law and policy in this area is anticipated. Its contours will be framed by the recommendations of the Irish Law Reform Commission following its 2023 consultation paper. This article seeks to frame pending reform against the backdrop of recent EU law developments, in particular the role of the EU Representative Actions Directive as a catalyst to regulatory reform, and the regulatory policy tensions inherent in the development of a commercial third-party funding market in Ireland.
Hate crime legislation was introduced in Ireland for the first time in 2024 through the Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024, which was preceded by the adoption at the Council of Europe of a new Recommendation on combating hate crime. This article will consider the 2024 Act in the context of the Recommendation as well as the Scottish Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 which clearly informed the drafting process. While the principles underpinning the introduction of hate crime legislation are sound, the implementation of those principles will require consideration. We speculate on the potential outcome of that scrutiny, concluding that while the principles underpinning the introduction of hate crime legislation are sound, the implementation of those principles is an egregious and, in recent years, unusual, example of British legislation being "emblazoned with the harp".
In 2006, the National Crime Council reported that an average rape case in Ireland took nearly two years to proceed from arrest to resolution. While there has been no more recent empirical investigation, figures from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Courts Service suggest that this timescale has worsened. Rape cases are complex and sensitive, and time is required to deal with them properly. However, lengthy timescales increase stress and frustration for complainants and can impact on the quality of the evidence available to the courts. Thus, the timelines for the processing of rape cases must be reduced as far as possible. Inefficiencies, and the delays they cause, should not be viewed as an inevitable aspect of the criminal justice process. In this paper, we review research from multiple jurisdictions that highlight some of these inefficiencies and point to measures to deal with them. We conclude that many of these measures could be implemented in Ireland with the promise of substantially improving timelines in rape cases in Ireland.
This article challenges the traditional view that competition law is blind to gender by considering several developments since 2017. It pays close attention to the Gender Inclusive Competition Toolkit issued by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) which offers practical advice to competition agencies on how to apply a gender lens and, in particular, to recognise where a market (or marketing) strategy may have gendered effect (namely where the impact on men and women is not the same). The significance of growing gender awareness is the fresh understanding it brings to how inequality may be mitigated by competition agencies. The growing momentum among competition agencies to no longer neglect gender (and, more broadly, inclusivity) is highlighted.
The Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2023 introduced a new offence of stalking and reformed the existing offence of harassment. This article examines both offences asking whether they cover the conduct that they target, whether they should cover all such conduct and whether the offences will require refinement in the appellate courts. The article draws out numerous features of both offences that may require attention of the courts to include whether harassment may be committed by omission, whether there is a minimis standard for harassment and whether a single incident may constitute stalking. There are good reasons for both offences. Yet it is one thing to make a successful case for criminalisation and quite another to draft criminal offence effectively
For years, the doctrine of constitutional identity has given rise to a heated debate: some have viewed as a guiding light delimiting the boundaries of the EU and national legal orders; others argue that it is essentially an opportunity for constitutional relativism. In November 2022, the Irish Supreme Court stepped into the fray, invoking the doctrine for the first time in holding that it would be unconstitutional for Ireland to ratify the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (Costello v Government of Ireland [2022] IESC 44). This article considers the utility and limits of the doctrine, in the light of the recent jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, CJEU and European Court of Human Rights. Is it, as some have argued, an important tool for protecting the autonomy of the (national or EU) legal order or, as others claim, a dangerous legal trump card with no definable boundaries?
"To read a computer is to go outside that physical space"1 Abstract: In Director of Public Prosecutions v Quirke, the Irish Supreme Court delivered a significant judgment on the extent to which a search of an individual's dwelling can also authorise the search of "digital spaces" accessed through devices located in that dwelling. While the decision shares certain features with judgments delivered by appellate courts in other common law jurisdictions, it diverges in its conceptualisation of the "digital space". In particular, it suggests that digital content may not enjoy the protection of the inviolability of the dwelling, as was previously suggested in other decisions.
