District Court judge Brian O’Shea, who has sat in courts in the southeast of the country, has resigned from the bench.
Mr O’Shea told The Irish Times he intended to return to practising as a barrister and will appear before higher courts in the region from next week.
He said he had intended to resign in October but “a couple of opportunities” had arisen for which he could not apply as a sitting judge.
The resignation was noted by the President of the District Court, Judge Paul Kelly, who described Mr O’Shea as “a great colleague who will be a loss to the District Court and to the judiciary generally”.
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Judge Kelly wished him well in his future career.
While Mr O’Shea is not prohibited by law from practising at the District Court, it is not allowed under the code of conduct of the Bar Council of Ireland, the professional body for barristers.
Mr O’Shea said he wanted to observe the code of conduct and would not therefore practise in the District Court, but would work in the Circuit and High Courts in the southeast from next week.
His resignation was conveyed to Judge Kelly and to the President Michael D Higgins, in line with protocol.
The resignation of a judge is comparatively rare event.
Before Mr O’Shea’s resignation, there were 65 District Court judges, seven short of the full complement of 72.
In advance of the judge’s resignation the Government had already announced plans to name six new judges in coming weeks, with a seventh due to be announced in September to replace one judge who is retiring.
Judge O’Shea raised concerns about the state of courthouses in Cork and Tipperary earlier this year and proposed transferring court sittings to two large courthouses due to “disgustingly unhygienic” toilets and rat infestations at existing courts.
In March, Mr O’Shea, who sat in courts in east Cork, south Tipperary and west Waterford, wrote to the Courts Service saying he intended to transfer District Court sittings from Youghal to Dungarvan and from Cashel and Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel.
Mr O’Shea said four of the six courthouses in the courts district – Carrick-on-Suir, Cashel, Youghal and Lismore, whose sittings were transferred to Dungarvan in 2022 – were “gravely inadequate in terms of their infrastructure”.
The Courts Service said it had been “engaging positively” with the then judge on the potential move. Mr O’Shea said the moves were not the reason for his resignation.
Before turning to the law, Mr O’Shea, who is from Kilkenny, served as a garda from 1997 to 2003, and worked as a college lecturer in Carlow Institute of Technology and St Patrick’s College in Carlow before being called to the Bar in 2005.
He practised criminal, family and civil law as a barrister before he was appointed a District Court judge in 2017.
