The President of Ireland has the right to appoint a maximum of seven members of the Council of State, which advises the President in exercising certain reserve powers. As well as the seven (or fewer) appointees, the Council has seven ex officio members and a variable number of life members by right of former office. An appointed member's term ends when the President's term ends, although a new or re-elected President may re-appoint members. If an appointed member accedes to one of the positions conferring ex officio membership of the Council, this creates a vacancy which the President may fill via another appointment.
The first President, Douglas Hyde, who took office in 1938, did not nominate members till the Council first met in January 1940; all six nominees were Oireachtas members, and not members of the Fianna Fáil government party.[1]
For long, Presidents included senior serving politicians on the Council. Éamon de Valera said during the 1937 debate on the proposed Constitution, "this Council of State ... will ordinarily contain the leaders of the big Parties in the Dáil."[2] Upon Richard Mulcahy's 1971 death, de Valera invited Fine Gael leader Liam Cosgrave to join but Cosgrave declined.[3] Fine Gael objected in 1991 that Mary Robinson had become the first President not to have the Leader of the Opposition in the Council.[4] [5] Robinson had promised to appoint two representatives of the Opposition, but the practice of including the Leader was not a fixed rule.[6] In early 1995, after the Fianna Fáil-led government was replaced by a Fine Gael-led government without a general election, Mary Robinson asked Monica Barnes of Fine Gael to resign from the council of state to allow Mary O'Rourke of Fianna Fáil to be appointed instead to increase the Opposition voice.[7] The Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution issued a 1998 report dealing with the Presidency, which recommended that the President be "empowered to nominate two members of the Dáil who belong to parties other than the party or parties that form the government for the life of that government".[8]
Early Presidents included one or two representatives of minorities; there were several of Anglo-Irish, Protestant, or ex-Unionist backgrounds, and the Jewish Bob Briscoe.[6] In campaigning in the 1990 presidential election, Mary Robinson promised to reform the Council of State. She criticised it for consisting "mainly of senior or retired politicians" and promised to make it "truly representative of the community as a whole".[9] Prior to 1990, Presidents generally reappointed members from the previous term; new members were appointed only when a vacancy arose by a previous appointee's death or accession to ex-officio membership. Patrick Hillery considered new appointees upon assuming office in 1976, and was advised there was no precedent for informing former Councillors of their exclusion;[10] Hillery decided "it would be too hurtful to drop any of the members".[11] Robinson abandoned this practice by appointing seven new members;[4] Mary McAleese did likewise at both her first and second terms. Michael D. Higgins appointed six first-timers and Catherine McGuinness, who had served under Patrick Hillery.[12] For his second term he appointed seven first-timers.
During the 2011 presidential election campaign, candidate Mary Davis, best known for her Special Olympics activism, pledged to nominate a person with intellectual disability to the Council.[13] This proposal attracted some criticism as tokenism, but was endorsed by Fergus Finlay.[14] During a debate on The Late Late Show, candidates were later asked whether they thought Denis O'Brien would be "a suitable person to be on the Council of State".[15] After the victory of Labour Party candidate Michael D. Higgins, the party denied that its leader Eamon Gilmore had suggested nominees to Higgins.[16]
| Appointee | Term[17] | Date appointed | Date ceased | Role on appointment; notes | Sources | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ? | TD, initially for Fine Gael, later Independent | |||||
| 1 | ? | Senator nominated by the Taoiseach | [18] | ||||
| 1 | ? | Independent Senator. Anglo-Irish Baronet. | |||||
| 1 | ? | Fine Gael TD | [19] | ||||
| 1 | ? | Labour Party leader | |||||
| 1 | Independent Senator and University College Dublin professor of Greek | [20] | |||||
| 1 | ? | Clann na Talmhan leader | |||||
| 1 | Anglo-Irish, 8th Earl of Granard. Died in office. | [21] [22] | |||||
| 2 | ? | Leader of the Opposition | [23] | ||||
| 2 | ? | ||||||
| 1 | Senator nominated by the Taoiseach. Died in office. | [24] | |||||
| 2 | ? | ||||||
| 2 | Tánaiste, and ex officio member of the Council, after the 1948 general election. | [25] | |||||
| 1 | ? | Fianna Fáil minister. | [26] [27] | ||||
| 3 | [28] [29] | ||||||
| 3 | Died in office | ||||||
| 2 | Made Tánaiste, and ex officio member of the Council, the day before O'Kelly's term expired | [30] | |||||
| 3 | |||||||
| 3 | Tánaiste, and ex officio member of the Council, in the 1954–57 government. | [31] | |||||
| 1 | 1956 | Anglo-Irish, grandson of Edward King-Harman; owned the Rockingham Estate, now Lough Key Forest Park | [32] | ||||
| 4 | Tánaiste, and ex officio member of the Council, till after the 1957 general election. | ||||||
| 1 | Fianna Fáil TD | [33] | |||||
| 1 | ? | Anglo-Irish Fine Gael TD | |||||
| 2 | ? | ||||||
| 4 | Died in office | [34] | |||||
| 2 | Died in office | [35] | |||||
| 4 | ? | ||||||
| 5 | Died in office | [36] | |||||
| 1 | Former Mayor of Limerick. Died in office. | [37] | |||||
| 1 | Former Governor-General of the Irish Free State. Died in office. | ||||||
| 2 | ? | Fine Gael Leader of the Opposition. Replaced Stephen O'Mara. | [38] | ||||
| 1 | ? | Jewish Fianna Fáil TD. Replaced Robert Farnan. | [39] | ||||
| 1 | ? | Labour Party leader. Replaced William Norton. | |||||
| 1 | ? | Fianna Fáil TD | |||||
| 1 | ? | Fianna Fáil former Senator and Lord Mayor of Cork | [40] | ||||
| 2 | Died in office | [41] | |||||
| 2 | Became Tánaiste, and ex-officio member of the Council, after the 1973 general election. | [42] | |||||
| 3 | ? | ||||||
| 3 | ? | ||||||
| 2 | ? | ||||||
| 5 | Died in office | ||||||
| 3 | ? | ||||||
| 1 | ? | Fianna Fáil TD. Tánaiste, and ex officio member of the Council, till after the 1969 general election. Replaced Bob Briscoe. | |||||
| 1 | ? | Provost of Trinity College Dublin. Replaced Richard Mulcahy. | [43] | ||||
| 1 | Labour Party minister. Replaced Brendan Corish. | [44] | |||||
| 2 | |||||||
| 2 | [45] | ||||||
| 4 | |||||||
| 4 | |||||||
| 3 | Died on 12 December 1974, before the newly elected President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh had appointed nominees to the Council. | ||||||
| 4 | |||||||
| 2 | |||||||
| 3 | |||||||
| 3 | |||||||
| 5 | |||||||
| 5 | |||||||
| 5 | |||||||
| 3 | |||||||
| 1 | Actress. Replaced Jane Dowdall. | [46] | |||||
| 4 | Died in office | [47] | |||||
| 4 | |||||||
| 6 | |||||||
| 6 | |||||||
| 6 | |||||||
| 4 | |||||||
| 2 | |||||||
| 1 | Widow of President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh. Replaced Frank Aiken. | [48] | |||||
| 5 | [49] | ||||||
| 7 | Died in office | ||||||
| 7 | Died in office | ||||||
| 7 | Died in office | ||||||
| 5 | |||||||
| 3 | Died in office | ||||||
| 2 | |||||||
| 1 | Former Fianna Fáil minister and Ceann Comhairle. Replaced Seán MacEntee. | [50] | |||||
| 1 | Fine Gael leader of the Opposition | [51] | |||||
| 1 | Barrister and former Independent Senator | [52] | |||||
| 1 | Fine Gael TD | [53] [54] | |||||
| 1 | Fine Gael TD. Resigned to make way for Mary O'Rourke. | ||||||
| 1 | An Taisce | ||||||
| 1 | Trade union barrister | ||||||
| 1 | Director of the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action | ||||||
| 1 | Irish Farmers' Association official | ||||||
| 1 | Disabled journalist | ||||||
| 1 | Former civil servant and Senator | ||||||
| 1 | Fianna Fáil TD. Replaced Monica Barnes. | ||||||
| 1 | Psychologist | [55] [56] | |||||
| 1 | Fianna Fáil MEP | ||||||
| 1 | Irish Municipal, Public and Civil Trade Union official | ||||||
| 1 | NUI Galway psychology professor[57] | ||||||
| 1 | Nun, Focus Ireland campaigner | ||||||
| 1 | Businessman | ||||||
| 1 | Belfast accountant | ||||||
| 1 | Former British Army colonel and Ulster Unionist Party councillor | [58] [59] | |||||
| 1 | Chair of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism | ||||||
| 1 | Special Olympics activist | ||||||
| 1 | Fianna Fáil Senator | ||||||
| 1 | Fine Gael activist | ||||||
| 1 | Northern Irish lawyer | ||||||
| 1 | Meningitis survivor | ||||||
| 1 | Solicitor and human/civil rights campaigner | [60] | |||||
| 1 | Provost and Dean of Academic Development, Magee College, University of Ulster | ||||||
| 2 | Former Senator, Supreme Court judge and President, Law Reform Commission | ||||||
| 1 | Community activist; Social entrepreneur; founder SpunOut.ie | ||||||
| 1 | Hackney borough councillor and advocate for Irish people in Great Britain | ||||||
| 1 | Professor Emeritus, NUI Galway; Former Cathaoirleach, Údarás na Gaeltachta | ||||||
| 1 | Director, Centre for Disability Law and Policy, NUI Galway | ||||||
| 1 | Incumbent | Fellow in environmental policy at University College Dublin | [61] | ||||
| 1 | Incumbent | Disability activist | |||||
| 1 | Incumbent | Irish Travellers' rights activist | |||||
| 1 | Incumbent | Chief executive of the Birmingham Irish Association | |||||
| 1 | Incumbent | [62] | |||||
| 1 | Incumbent | Social policy academic at NUI Maynooth | [63] | ||||
| 1 | Incumbent | Journalist and former Coimisinéir Teanga |