Tribunal work is not a new experience for Mr Justice Michael Moriarty who will chair the second tribunal of inquiry into payments to politicians. In the mid-1980s he was senior counsel representing the tribunal in the Kerry Babies inquiry. He has been a High Court judge since April last year and was a Circuit Court judge for nine years.
A well-liked and respected judge, known to his friends as Mossie, he is described as affable, conscientious, courteous and fair. The 51-year-old judge is also seen to favour modernising the judicial system.
He was born in Belfast in 1946 into a middle-class family. In 1960 the family moved to Dublin where he was educated at Blackrock College and UCD.
His career has encompassed all aspects of the law and began in 1968 when he was called to the Bar. While establishing himself he gave law tutorials in technical colleges in Dublin. As a junior he devilled for Mr Harry Hill SC, now Master of the High Court.
He became a senior counsel in 1982, was appointed chairman of the Employment Appeals Tribunal in 1986 and became a Circuit Court judge in 1987 at the young age of 40. He has been involved in a range of criminal and civil cases.
He is married to a senior counsel, Ms Mary Irvine, a former amateur golfing international, and they have three children. He used to play cricket with Pembroke, still plays soccer and is an opera enthusiast. In his political affiliation he is described as "labour with a small l".
As a junior prosecuting counsel he was involved in the Mountbatten murder case, and he appeared for the DPP in the Shercock case in the mid-1980s in which gardai were accused of the death of a man in custody. He also appeared as a senior counsel for the Attorney General in the Supreme Court hearing for the extradition of Dominic McGlinchey. One of his most recent cases was the high profile Rocca-Ryan civil assault case.
He was chairman of the Lord Mayor's Commission on Crime in Dublin which produced a report in 1994 focusing on working-class victims of crime. He has also been a frequent visitor to prisons to see the conditions there and has worked with the Catholic Youth Council.