THE MAN appointed to chair the tribunal of inquiry into the hepatitis C scandal brings half a century of legal experience to the task.
After his retirement, he oversaw the inquiry into the violence by English fans at the 1995 Lansdowne Road soccer match. He also chaired the Commission on the Newspaper Industry in the same year, which recommended widespread reforms.
Called to the bar in 1944, Mr Thomas Finlay became President of the High Court and later Chief Justice during a career which combined great diligence in the preparation of cases and judgments with pragmatism in decision making.
When he was appointed to the High Court in October 1972, he had built a high reputation as an advocate. He successfully defended Capt James Kelly in the 1970 arms trial and presented the Irish case when the State took the UK before the European Court of Human Rights for mistreatment of prisoners.
He was quickly promoted to the Presidency of the High Court when that institution underwent major expansion. The increase both in the number and complexity of cases coming before it was matched by the new President's work rate, which he managed to combine with his universal popularity throughout the profession.
In 1985, Mr Justice Finlay succeeded Mr Justice Tom O'Higgins as Chief Justice and his characteristic approach - based on the lessons of common sense and experience rather than abstract principle - featured in a number of landmark cases.
These included the McGimpsey challenge to the constitutionality of the Anglo Irish Agreement.
In another much debated decision, Mr Justice Finlay ruled in 1992 with the majority of the Supreme Court that the concept of collective government responsibility enshrined in the Constitution prevented the beef tribunal inquiring into what was said at a particular meeting of the Cabinet.
But arguably the most famous judgment delivered by him was that in the 1992 X case, which overturned the High Court injunction preventing the young girl at the centre of the case from travelling to the UK for an abortion.
Throughout his career, the work of the judge has been dominated by an insistence on upholding human rights and by a special concern for family law, He was always very conscious of the problems of children in cases of marital breakdown.
On his retirement as Chief Justice in 1994, Mr Justice Hamilton remarked that his fairness and determination in upholding constitutional rights had been an important factor in overcoming the initial hostility to the establishment of the Special Criminal Court.
His grasp of detail and the breadth of his legal knowledge made him always a hugely impressive figure in court, even though it was said that his written judgments were triumphs of authoritative detail over literary flair.
Born in Dublin in 1922, he studied at Clongowes Wood College and at University College Dublin. He was a Fine Gael member of Dail Eireann between 1954 and 1957, representing Dublin South Central.
He is married to Alice Blayney and the couple have five children.
