Former Fine Gael senator Eugene Regan receives ECJ nomination

Former Fine Gael senator Eugene Regan has been nominated by the Government for appointment as a judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ).

Mr Regan, a senior counsel, is to replace the current Irish representative on the court, Judge Aindrias Ó Caoimh, whose term of office will expire in October.

The nomination follows the receipt of recommendations from an expert panel chaired by retired High Court judge Mr Justice John Cooke.

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald paid tribute to Judge Ó Caoimh, who served as a judge of the ECJ since 2004, and thanked him on behalf of the Government.

Mr Regan was educated at University College Dublin, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, the King’s Inns and the Irish Management Institute. He was called to the Bar in 1985 and to the Inner Bar in 2005.

A practising barrister since 1995, he has experience in European law, competition and state-aid law, public procurement, social security, data protection, environmental law, asylum and immigration and criminal justice.

He was a member of the cabinet of European commissioner Peter Sutherland between 1985 and 1988 and was a Fine Gael senator between 2007 and 2011. He won a seat on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for Fine Gael in 2004. He contested the 2007 general election unsuccessfully. He was subsequently elected to the Seanad’s agricultural panel but did not contest the 2011 Seanad election.