Attorney General of Ireland

Attorney General of Ireland
Incumbent Máire Whelan since 9 March 2011
Appointer	Mary McAleese as President on the nomination of the Taoiseach
Inaugural holder	Hugh Kennedy
Formation	31 January 1922
Website	www.attorneygeneral.ie

Ireland

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The Attorney General (Irish: An tArd-Aighne) is a constitutional officer who is the official adviser to the Government of Ireland in matters of law. He is in effect the chief law officer in Ireland. The Attorney General is not a member of the Government but does participate in cabinet meetings when invited and attends government meetings. The current Attorney General is Máire Whelan, SC. She is the first woman to hold the post.

Contents 1 Overview 2 History 3 List of Attorneys General 3.1 Attorneys General of the Irish Free State 3.2 Attorneys General of Ireland 4 See also 5 Notes 6 External links

Overview

The Attorney General has always been a barrister rather than a solicitor, although this is not a requirement for the post. If the barrister chosen by the Government to be its Attorney General (normally on political- and personal-connection grounds rather than any other considerations) is not a Senior Counsel at the time, the government of the day has made him one first, John Rogers BL and John M. Kelly BL being two examples.

The Attorney General advises the Government on the constitutionality of bills and treaties, and presents the Government's case if the President refers any bill to the Supreme Court under Article 26 of the Constitution before signing it.

The Attorney General has few prosecution duties; these are limited to functions under the various Fisheries Acts and Extradition Acts. Instead, the Director of Public Prosecutions has responsibility for all other criminal prosecutions in the State.

The Office of the Attorney General consists of a number of different offices:

• The Advisory Counsel to the Attorney General (providing legal advice)
• The Office of the Parliamentary Counsel (drafting legislation)
• The Chief State Solicitor's Office (providing litigation, conveyancing and other transactional services)
• The Statute Law Revision Unit (simplifying and improving the body of statute law)

Part of the Attorney General's function has been to identify and prepare the repeal of all legislation passed before independence. This includes laws of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Britain, England, and the Irish Parliament. For example the killing of cattle in Dublin is still regulated, in part by an Irish act of 1743, while the "Treatment of Foreign Merchants" is governed by 25 Edw. 1 Magna Carta c. 30, an act of the Parliament of England dated 1297.

History

The office, which was created in the 1937 Constitution of Ireland, is a lineal successor of the offices of Attorney-General for Ireland, Attorney-General for Southern Ireland and the Attorney-General of the Irish Free State (Irish: Príomh-Atúrnae Shaorstáit Éireann). Unlike the modern office, those earlier offices were a creation of statute law, not a written constitution. Unlike the modern office, the earlier offices also had a hyphen between the words attorney and general.

Two less well known but significant roles played by all Irish Attorneys General to date are as the "leader of the Irish Bar" and as a Bencher of the King's Inns. The acceptance by Attorneys General of these non-statutory and often secretive roles upon taking office throughout the years has been questioned and criticised as inappropriate for a Constitutional office-holder. In 1990, the Irish Government’s Fair Trade Commission stated that “[w]e have recommended that the Bar Council should be the primary disciplinary body for barristers, and it does not include any members of the judiciary. The Attorney General is, however, a member of the Bar Council, and the Commission believes that it is preferable that he should not be involved when the Bar Council is exercising its disciplinary function. The Attorney General is also a member of the Council of King's Inns, and the Commission believes it to preferable that he should not participate in any disciplinary activity pursued by that body either. Indeed, in general, we find the membership of these bodies by the Attorney General to be somewhat anomalous.”^[1]

There had developed over the years a practice (of unknown origin) whereby the Attorney General of the day had his pick of possible appointments to the Irish judiciary upon his vacating the office of Attorney General; since Harry Whelehan's botched appointment to the presidency of the High Court (Ireland) in 1994, this practice appears to have gone into abeyance.

List of Attorneys General

Attorneys General of the Irish Free State
No.	Name	Term of Office
1.	Hugh Kennedy	31 January 1922[2]	5 June 1924
2.	John O'Byrne	7 June 1924	9 January 1926
3.	John A. Costello	9 January 1926	9 March 1932
4.	Conor Maguire	10 March 1932	2 November 1936
5.	James Geoghegan	2 November 1936	22 December 1936
6.	Patrick Lynch	22 December 1936	31 December 1937
Attorneys General of Ireland
No.	Name	Term of Office
6.	Patrick Lynch	1 January 1938	1 March 1940
7.	Kevin Haugh	2 March 1940	10 October 1942
8.	Kevin Dixon	10 October 1942	30 April 1946
9.	Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh	30 April 1946	18 February 1948
10.	Cecil Lavery	19 February 1948	21 April 1950
11.	Charles Casey	21 April 1950	12 June 1951
	Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh	14 June 1951	11 July 1953
12.	Thomas Teevan	11 July 1953	30 January 1954
13.	Aindrias Ó Caoimh	30 January 1954	2 June 1954
14.	Patrick McGilligan	2 June 1954	20 March 1957
	Aindrias Ó Caoimh	20 March 1957	15 March 1965
15.	Colm Condon	16 March 1965	14 March 1973
17.	Declan Costello	15 March 1973	19 May 1977
18.	John Kelly	20 May 1977	5 July 1977
19.	Anthony J. Hederman	6 July 1977	29 June 1981
20.	Peter Sutherland	30 June 1981	9 March 1982
21.	Patrick Connolly	10 March 1982	16 August 1982
22.	John L. Murray	17 August 1982	14 December 1982
	Peter Sutherland	15 December 1982	12 December 1984
23.	John Rogers	13 December 1984	10 March 1987
	John L. Murray	11 March 1987	25 September 1991
24.	Harry Whelehan	26 September 1991	11 November 1994
25.	Eoghan Fitzsimons	11 November 1994	15 December 1994
26.	Dermot Gleeson	15 December 1994	26 June 1997
27.	David Byrne	26 June 1997	17 July 1999
28.	Michael McDowell	17 July 1999	6 June 2002
29.	Rory Brady	7 June 2002	14 June 2007
30.	Paul Gallagher	14 June 2007	9 March 2011
31.	Máire Whelan	9 March 2011	Incumbent

See also

• Politics of the Republic of Ireland

Notes

External links

• Official site of the Attorney General
• Irish Statutes (since 1922)