TCD – Page 6 – cearta.ie

The appointment of Dr Carol Coulter as Family Law Reporter was welcomed here last October. Today’s Irish Times (both on the front page and in a special report inside) reports that she has now produced her first report, under the title used in the title to this post. Thanks, Carol, for shining such important light on crucial, if heretofore opaque, aspects of our justice system.

This comes on the day when there is significant coverage of the government’s plans for a referendum on children’s rights (eg RTE (Mon (yesterday) | Tue (today) | Irish Times front page, inside | Irish Independent | Irish Examiner). As it happens, the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin, will tomorrow hold a conference on Children’s Rights and the Constitution.

Update (22 February 2007): My colleague Eoin Carlan has an excellent piece on the Government proposals in yesterday’s Irish Times; and there is coverage by Carl O’Brien of yesterday’s TCD conference in today’s Irish Times.

Update (27 February 2007): Dr Carol Coulter’s report Family Law Matters has now been published on the Courts Service website. It provoked an acerbic attack from the pen of John Waters in yesterday’s Irish Times, which in turn drew a measured response in that paper’s letters column today from Gerry Curran, Media Relations Adviser to the Courts Service.…

Dublin Legal Workshop: Broadcasting Bill

9 February, 200716 January, 2009

| No Comments

| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops, Digital Rights, Media and Communications

As the regular reader (there is [only]or[at least] one, according to my stats counters) of this blog will know, I am interested in the slow progress of the Broadcasting Bill, 2006 through the Houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament). For that reason, I am greatly looking forward to the next lecture in the evening stream of the Dublin Legal Workshop. Next Tuesday, 13 February, David McMunn, Director of Government, Regulatory and Legal Affairs for TV3, will give a talk entitled

The Broadcasting Bill, 2006. The Tooth Fairy – Judge,
Jury and Executioner.

It will be held in Room 11 of the School of Law, House 39, Trinity College Dublin (a map of College with directions to the School of Law is available here), at 6pm. If you’re interested, please do come along. …

The Role of the Supreme Court

3 February, 200716 January, 2009

| No Comments

| Irish Law, US Supreme Court

Interesting coincidence. At around the same time that Donncha O’Connell, Dean of the Faculty of Law, NUI Galway was this week welcoming Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the US Supreme Court to Galway [she was in Trinity the following day] and objecting to single judgments by the Irish Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg’s boss, Chief Justice John Roberts, was telling law students in Northwestern University that his court should strive for precisely that, provoking a predictable storm of welcomes and worries.

These two speeches neatly encapsulate an important philosophical constitutional debate both in the US and in Ireland.…

All I want for Christmas …

22 December, 200616 January, 2009

| No Comments

| Irish Law, Universities

… is a new Law School, a new Law School, a new Law School etc.

Congratulations to the School of Law, UCD, who have just announced that Peter Sutherland has made a sizeable and generous donation of â‚¬4m to UCD to help fund a new Law School in UCD (to replace the rather pretty, if not very efficient, buidling in the photo; see Irish Indpendent | Irish Times). Congratulations to them. Any other benefactors seeking to endow a Law School might like to consider Trinity … Come to think of it, Christmas is coming; perhas Santa might take the view that we’ve good this year. Well, maybe next year.

Update: 8 January 2007: The formal UCD press release on the announcement has just been published.…

Trinity study on Ageing

6 November, 200616 January, 2009

| No Comments

| Irish Society, Universities

The most ambitious study of ageing ever undertaken in Ireland was launched today in Trinity College Dublin by the Minister for Health. The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) has been made possible through a â‚¬4 million research donation from Irish Life and a contribution from The Atlantic Philantrophies.

There was some pre-launch positive press. …

Real university rankings

25 October, 200623 April, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Universities

Earlier this month, the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) published its world university rankings for this year. (The Trinity College Dublin (TCD) press release on our positions in the rankings is here). As univerities world-wide tie themselves up in knots to improve their positions on the various tables published by the Times, the THES, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and US News & World Report, amongst others, here’s a rankings scheme that I think they should all take seriously: Eamonn Fitzgerald on Rainy Day has ranked some of the world’s top universities simpy for the attractiveness of their websites. TCD didn’t feature (funny, that); and Brown is best.…

Student Discipline

24 October, 200616 January, 2009

| No Comments

| Universities

Today’s Irish Times carries a series of articles on student discipline here in Trinity College Dublin. Student pranks are very much part of the stereotypical view of college life, but there is very much more to it than that.…

We have a cunning plan

9 October, 200623 April, 2009

| 1 Comment

| Universities

Trinity College Dublin last night launched its Strategic Plan at a reception in which the Provost presented the Minister for Education with a copy of the plan. It has played well in a piece by Sean Flynn in today’s Irish Times, under the headline “Trinity seeks 25% increase in postgraduates”, and focussing on the plan’s strong emphasis on increased research activity and aim to improve Trinity’s position in world rankings as a consequence.

It is an important development, and I welcome it wholeheartedly, but I feel the need to sound a note of caution. …