The Government has nominated Mrs Justice Fidelma Macken to be appointed to the Supreme Court.
Mrs Justice Macken's appointment brings to three the number of woman judges on the Supreme Court. She will join Mrs Justice Susan Denham and Mrs Justice Catherine McGuinness, though the latter will not sit regularly as she is now president of the Law Reform Commission.
The Government also yesterday nominated Judge Matthew Deery as president of the Circuit Court, replacing Mr Justice Esmond Smyth. Judge Miriam Malone has been nominated as president of the District Court.
Mrs Justice Macken is currently a judge of the High Court, to which she was appointed in 1998. However, she only served briefly before being appointed in 1999 as the first ever woman judge to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, where she was president of its third and sixth chambers. She returned to Ireland at the end of her term last year.
She was called to the Bar in 1973 and started practising in 1979. She specialised in commercial law, especially intellectual property rights.
Judge Deery is from Dundalk, and was called to the Bar in 1972, practising mainly on the Eastern circuit. He specialised in personal injuries, contract law, property and succession. He is also a member of the Northern Ireland bar. He became a Circuit Court judge in 1988, and spent six years on the Midland Circuit and 11 on the Northern Circuit.
Judge Malone is currently a District Court judge, working in Dublin. She replaces as president Judge Peter Smithwick, who has retired to chair the tribunal into the shooting by the IRA of two RUC officers following their visit to the Republic in 1989.
A graduate of UCD and Kings Inns, she was called to the Bar in 1976 and was appointed a District Court judge in 1997.
The Government has also nominated two more judges of the District Court. They are Brian Joseph Sheridan, the solicitor-in-charge at the Legal Aid Board, Cork city, and Aeneas Joseph McCarthy, currently practising in the firm of John Cooke in Limerick.
Mr Sheridan will be assigned to the Dublin Metropolitan area and Mr McCarthy will be unassigned. He will replace the current unassigned judge, Judge Terence Finn, who will be permanently assigned to the South Tipperary/West Waterford area.