Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has announced two new appointments to the Policing Authority, the agency that oversees the performance of An Garda Síochána.
Paul Mageean, a member of the Human Rights Commission in Northern Ireland, is one of two appointments confirmed by the government and Mr Flanagan on Tuesday.
The other, Dr Vicky Conway, is returning to the authority for a second stint. She departed in 2016 to take up a place on the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland.
Their appointments, after a recruitment competition, bring to a full complement of eight the number of people on the Policing Authority. It is chaired by the former head of the Revenue Commissioners Josephine Feehily.
Mr Mageean is director of the Institute of Professional Legal Studies in Queens University, Belfast, and is a parole commissioner in the North.
He is also chair of the Public Interest Litigation Support Project which provides legal and financial support to law firms and non-government organisations seeking to bring public interest and human rights and equality cases.
Dr Conway is an academic lawyer lecturing in Dublin City University. She has published research projects on Garda culture and the history of the force and has lectured on a variety of subjects across the Irish criminal justice system.
