The UCD Sutherland School of Law annual conference on current issues in Irish public law will take place this Thursday at Belfield, with registration at 9am.

The first session at 9.30am will examine constitutional issues and is chaired by Attorney General Rossa Fanning SC.

Speakers

Speakers and topics are:

• Colm O Cinneide (UCL): Ireland and the ECHR: An exception to national sovereignty,
• John O’Dowd (UCD): Constitutional interpretation after Costello and Heneghan,
• Emily Farrell SC: Developments in the duty to give reasons.

A coffee break is followed by parallel sessions at 11am.

The housing law element will hear from:

• Finn Keyes BL: Recent developments in housing and the law,
• April Duff BL: Housing rights of applicants for international protection.

The data and information element will hear from:

• Ronan Lupton SC: Developments in data retention, digital evidence, and non-material damages claims,
• Roisin Costello BL: A computer's body and its soul: The use of common law and statutory powers in digital searches following DPP v Quirke.

Parallel sessions between 12-12.50pm will cover immigration and asylum:

• Aoife Mc Mahon BL: Recent challenges to the revocation of EUTR permissions: the scope of national procedural autonomy,
• Sarah Cooney BL: Supreme Court's recent recalibration of approach to private and family life rights in immigration decisions.

A session on regulatory matters will hear from:

• Aoiffe Moran, Mason Hayes & Curran: Regulation of accountants,
• Eoin Carolan SC: The inspection, search and admissibility of accounts and records in regulatory proceedings.

Lunch at 1pm is followed by session four on family law, chaired by Ms Justice Phelan of the High Court:

• Eltin Ryle, Matheson: Update on the law relating to surrogacy in Ireland,
• Aoife Mulligan BL: The new assisted decision-making regime.

A session on planning law is chaired by Mr Justice Maurice Collins of the Supreme Court:

• Brian Foley SC: Recent developments in the standard of review,
• Mark Rodgers BL: The status of section 5 declarations in section 160 planning injunctions.

Session five, at 2.45pm, will cover practice and procedure, and is chaired by Ms Justice Butler of the Court of Appeal:

• Ailbhe O’Neill SC: The use of evidence in public law litigation,
• Denise Brett SC: The duty of candour: recent developments,
• Bernadette Quigley SC: Legal professional privilege under EU law.

The session on criminal law will hear from:

• John Fitzgerald SC: The compatibility of common law jury trials with EU law,
• Tony McGillicuddy SC: Exclusion of evidence in criminal/civil matters.

Mr Justice Collins, Ms Justice Butler, Mr Justice O’Higgins, and the Attorney General Rossa Fanning SC will join this discussion.

Professor Eoin Carolan SC and Associate Professor John O'Dowd of UCD are also speaking and other participants include:

• Denise Brett SC,
• Sarah Cooney BL,
• Dr Róisín Á Costello BL,
• April Duff BL,
• Emily Farrell SC,
• Aoife McMahon BL,
• Ailbhe O’Neill SC, TCD,
• Bernadette Quigley SC.

Registration is open now.