Aoife Beirne BL

Aoife has a general civil and commercial practice.

She is regularly instructed in complex commercial litigation in the Superior Courts, including the Commercial Court, arising out of contractual, company and negligence disputes.

Aoife also regularly acts in matters which have complicated EU law elements. She is instructed in a number of public procurement challenges. She has been appointed to the panels of counsel maintained by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) (for both Corporate and Regulatory matters) and the Central Bank of Ireland.

She has been nominated by the Office of the Attorney General to be instructed by the Chief State Solicitor’s Office to provide advice to and appear on behalf of Government departments on a number matters including EU law, public procurement law, competition law and property law. She has appeared before the Valuation Tribunal.

One discreet area of her practice is probate and succession, as well as property law. She is instructed in a number of s. 117 and similar applications on behalf of both applicants and estates. She also regularly makes applications in the Non-Contentious Probate List and provides advice on probate and succession generally. Aoife also acts and advises in property disputes, including commercial landlord and tenant disputes.

She will be one of the co-authors on the fifth edition of Delany and McGrath on Civil Procedure, published by Round Hall.

Aoife is instructed in a variety of court and non-court matters. Recent cases include:

Commercial

• Junior Counsel, as part of the Counsel team, instructed for an international insurer in six separate sets of proceedings brought by aircraft lessors seeking an indemnity pursuant to various insurance policies in respect of aircraft located in Russia. Reported here.
• Junior Counsel for the Trustees of a pension plan in a Commercial Court application concerning the interpretation of the plan.
• In the Matter of Custom House Capital Limited (In Liquidation) [2021] IEHC 842 – Junior Counsel for a legitimus contradictor appointed by the Court in an application by the Investor Compensation Company DAC for directions concerning its right of subrogation to Net Loss Client Assets. Reported here.
• Sweeney & The Limerick Private Limited v VHI [2021] IESC 58 – Junior Counsel in this Supreme Court case which concerned the test to be applied in applications to exclude experts on the grounds that they have come into contact with confidential and privileged information. Reported in the Irish Times.
• Junior counsel in application to appoint a receiver over partnership assets. Resolved.

European / Public Procurement

• CHC Ireland DAC v Minister for Transport – Junior Counsel for the notice party in an ongoing Commercial Court procurement challenge to the award of the contract for the Irish Coast Guard Aviation Service worth €800m, in which an application to lift the automatic suspension was successful in both the High Court ([2023] IEHC 457) and Court of Appeal ([2023] IECA 229). Reported here.
• SERE v HSE [2023] IEHC 63 – Counsel for the HSE in this Commercial Court procurement challenge to a tender competition concerning the supply of air ambulance services. Under appeal. Reported here.
• Junior Counsel for the applicant in a Commercial Court procurement challenge to the award of a street lighting contract worth €23.5m. Reported here.
• Junior Counsel for an Irish university in a Commercial Court procurement challenge to the award of a contract for cleaning services. Resolved. Reported here.
• Junior Counsel for the Minister for Rural and Community Development in a Commercial Court procurement challenge to the award of a contract for ferry services to an off-shore island. Resolved.
• Junior Counsel for the Minister for Education in a Commercial Court procurement challenge to the award of a contract for the provision of an information technology platform worth €8m. Resolved. Reported here.

Probate

• Regular applications on behalf of a leading Irish bank for ad litem grants in the High Court Non-Contentious Probate List
• Junior counsel (for both plaintiff and estate) in a number of applications (Circuit Court and High Court) pursuant to s. 117 of the Succession Act 1965

Employment

• O’Donovan v Over-C Technology Limited [2021] IECA 37 – Junior Counsel for the defendant company in a successful and widely reported appeal to the Court of Appeal concerning the dismissal of an employee during the probationary period.

• “Expert evidence: lessons from abroad” (2017) 22(2) Bar Review 48
• “New direction” (2018) Law Society Gazette 54

Recent talks include:

• “Abnormally Low Tenders”, CMG Public Sector Tendering & Procurement Conference, 28 September 2023
• “Expert Evidence: Independence”, Presentation to Tort and Insurance Bar Association Annual Conference, 13 May 2023
• “Cryptoassets in Probate: Hold On for Dear Life?”, Presentation to Probate Bar Association, 28 February 2023
• “EU Remedies Directive: How & when it can be used”, CMG Public Sector Tendering & Procurement Conference, 5 October 2022
• “Record Keeping in Public Procurement: A Litigation Perspective”, Eolas Public Procurement Conference, 10 June 2021
• “Wills and Probate Online Training”, FLAC, 23 March 2021

Aoife previously lectured in a variety of legal subjects to both law students and non-legal professionals. She has lectured in Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, and the Law Society of Ireland. She has tutored in Civil Procedure and Conveyancing at the Honourable Society of King’s Inns.

She was the co-cordinator of the Advanced Diploma in Public Procurement Law at the Honourable Society of King’s Inns for five years, and remains a lecturer on that course.

Aoife is a former Chair of the Irish Society for European Law (ISEL), which is an association of practicing and academic lawyers with the object of promoting the study and practice of European Law in Ireland. Aoife chaired a committee for two years (2019-2021) which organised seminars on topics of current interest relating to the law of the European Union and European Human Rights law. She remains a Vice-President of the Society.

She is a member of the committee of the EU Bar Association (EUBA) since 2022.

She served as a co-opted member of the Council of the Bar of Ireland (2018-2019), where she sat on the Library Committee and the Education and Training Committee.

Aoife has also delivered probate training for FLAC. She is a member of the Probate Bar Association of Ireland.

Research

Aoife’s PhD was awarded to her by Trinity College Dublin in 2017. The research, entitled ‘The Incorporation of Expert Evidence”, was supervised by Prof. Liz Heffernan, and was funded by an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Studentship and Arthur Cox. Aoife was the researcher on the second edition of McGrath, Evidence (Round Hall, 2014).

Selected Awards

• Arthur Cox Postgraduate Bursary
• Government of Ireland Studentship – Irish Research Council
• W.M. Tapp Studentship in Law – Gonville and Caius College, University of Cambridge
• Honorary Cambridge European Trust Scholar – University of Cambridge
• Scholar of Trinity College Dublin