Professor Donncha O’Connell is the newly-appointed Head of the School of Law at NUI Galway having recently been appointed to an Established Chair in Law.
Mr O’Connell is also a part-time Commissioner of the Law Reform Commission, the statutory body charged with advising the government on law reform proposals, and a member of the Legal Aid Board.
He was called to the Bar in 1990 and subsequently went to the University of Edinburgh, graduating with a Masters in Law in 1993. He was then appointed to a lectureship at the School of Law, NUI Galway and taught Constitutional Law, Labour Law and European Human Rights.
In 1999 he was appointed as the first full-time Director of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL). In 2002 Donncha resigned as Director of the ICCL and returned to the Law School at NUI Galway. In the same year he was appointed as the Irish member of the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights established by the European Commission on foot of a recommendation by the European Parliament LIBE Committee.
In 2005 Donncha O’Connell was elected Dean of Law at NUI Galway and served a full term until 2008. During that time he worked through the Council of Deans to bring about the establishment of the new College of Business, Public Policy & Law, NUI Galway.