Dr Conan McKenna

Conan is a former Assistant Secretary General in the Department of Justice where he was responsible, in 2012-2019, for all non-criminal legislation including the Legal Services Regulation Act, the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act and the Judicial Council Act.  He retired in 2019 after 40 years working across seven public sector organisations. 

Since then he has done extensive work in the regulatory sector as a member of the Board and of the Fitness to Practice Committee of the NMBI and as a member of the Complaints Committee of the LSRA. He is also chairperson of the Audit and Risk Committee of the Data Protection Commission.

He was originally called to the Bar in the 1980s but has never been a practising barrister. He has used his legal training, instead, to help in his public sector work. He spent 16 years working in the Houses of the Oireachtas where, among other things, he was responsible for building and managing the secretariat for Oireachtas Committees and had a significant involvement in the only instance in which a process under Article 35.4.1 of the Constitution (removal of a judge from office) has been deployed in Ireland (2004-2006).

In addition to the Bar, Conan has a BA in English Language and Literature from UCD, an MSc in Management (Organisation Behaviour) from TCD and a Doctorate in Governance from QUB.