Séamus Woulfe


Séamus Philip Woulfe is an Irish lawyer who is a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland since July 2020. He served as Attorney General of Ireland from 2017 to 2020. Prior to holding public office, he was a barrister practising in the areas of commercial and public law.

Early life

Séamus Philip Woulfe was born in 1962. He was educated at Belvedere College, graduating in 1980. He obtained a BA from Trinity College Dublin in 1984. He played squash for the university. He then obtained an LLM degree from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1986, and a BL degree from the Honourable Society of King’s Inns in 1987.

Legal career

Woulfe began practising at the Irish bar in October 1987 and was called to the Inner Bar as senior counsel in March 2005. His practice was focused on commercial and public law. He held several appointments, including Legal Assessor to the Fitness to Practise Committees of the Irish Medical Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland.
As a junior counsel, Woulfe acted in the Beef Tribunal for Pat Rabbitte. He appeared with Adrian Hardiman and Iseult O'Malley in 1993 for Rabbitte and Tomás MacGiolla in Attorney General v Hamilton which clarified the law on parliamentary privilege in Ireland. Woulfe and Michael White took the Government of Ireland to the European Court of Human Rights due to a long delay in their professional fees being discharged at the tribunal. The State was liable to pay the fees, but appealed a 1996 decision of the Taxing Master as to the level of the fees. The appeal took many further years to be determined.
Along with Mary Robinson, he represented defendants including Ivana Bacik, Trinity College Dublin Students' Union and the University College Dublin Students' Union in actions taken by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children in the High Court, the Supreme Court and the European Court of Justice. He acted for the defendant in Attorney General v. X in 1992 with John Rogers, one of the leading cases on abortion in the Republic of Ireland.
In 2013, he was appointed as investigator for a land deal by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. In 2015, he represented John Perry in the High Court in a challenge against Fine Gael decision to drop him as a general election candidate.
Woulfe lectured part-time for many years at Trinity College Dublin. He was part of a Working Group on Judicial Review at the Law Reform Commission in 2002. As vice-chairman of the Bar of Ireland, in 2016 he established a Wellness Committee. He was a member of Irish Sport's Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel.

Attorney General

He was appointed as Attorney General in June 2017 on the nomination of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, at the formation of the 31st Government of Ireland, succeeding Máire Whelan. At the time of his appointment, he was active with Fine Gael in Dublin Bay North. He was seen by ministers to be a trusted adviser to Varadkar.
In 2018, he described the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017, which had been promoted by Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport Shane Ross, as "a dog’s dinner". The Bill reached the final stage of debate in Seanad Éireann and was subject to a series of amendments which delayed its progression through the Oireachtas. The bill lapsed in January 2020 on the dissolution of the 32nd Dáil when the 2020 general election was called.
He recommended that the text of the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland, to replace the Eighth Amendment, should contain text enabling the Oireachtas to legislate for abortion, rather than simply removing provisions related to abortion from the Constitution. The advice was published in abbreviated form. He advised that the Occupied Territories Bill would be open to Constitutional challenge, which led to the government deciding not to support it. Following the death a candidate in the Tipperary constituency during the 2020 Irish general election, he advised the government that the election could go ahead.
Following the 2020 general election and several months where no government was in place, he appeared on behalf of the State in a three-judge division of the High Court on a case taken by a number of senators about whether the Seanad could sit without the nominated members of Seanad Éireann. Woulfe on behalf of the State argued that it could not. The three judges found in favour of the State.
His department advised on legislation restricting activity during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland, including in regard to its constitutional implications.
Negotiations between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party for a new government resulted in the role of Attorney General being rotated over the term of the government, with Fianna Fáil selecting the first Attorney General. Woulfe was succeeded by Paul Gallagher on 27 June 2020.

Judicial career

Woulfe briefly returned to practice at the bar in June 2020 following the end of his period as Attorney General. In July 2020, he was nominated by the Government to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court of Ireland that had been left following the retirement of Mary Finlay Geoghegan. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said his appointment was recommended by the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board and had not been part of government negotiations. Woulfe informed Leo Varadkar in February 2020 that he would apply to the JAAB for a Supreme Court position. He was appointed on 23 July 2020 and made his judicial declaration the following day in the Supreme Court.

Personal life

A longtime resident of Clontarf, Dublin, Woulfe is married to Sheena Hickey, with two children.