John McDaid is the Chief Executive of the Legal Aid Board in Ireland. Holding a degree in law, he qualified as a solicitor in 1988. He worked in private legal practice in Australia and Dublin before joining the Legal Aid Board in 1993 where he has continued to work since. He worked as a managing solicitor in a number of the Board’s law centres before taking up a senior management role on the operational side. He was appointed Chief Executive in December 2014. He holds a Masters of Science in Business Practice.
LOCAL RESEARCHERS - IRELAND
Andrew Field (M.A., M.Phil., PG Dip Bus Admin) is a Higher Executive Officer and is currently based in two of the Board’s units. He is part of the Strategy Unit which has responsibility for civil legal aid policy development and strategic research and he is also based in the Legal Services Unit which is the Board’s decision making function. He joined the Legal Aid Board in 2014 and has worked in several units in the Board since – Human Resources, Civil Operations, Legal Services and Strategy Unit. Mr Field graduated with a BA in Geography in 2004, an MA in Sustainable Development in 2005 and was conferred with an M.Phil in 2009 all from University College Cork. He obtained a Post Graduate Diploma from The Open University in business administration in 2018.
Ronan Deegan (B.A. LL.B. M.A. Barrister-at-Law) has been the Legal Aid Board’s Assistant Director, Strategy since May 2019, where he has responsibility for civil legal aid policy development and strategic research. He has worked in the Legal Aid Board since November 2006 in a variety of positions, having previously worked in the Civil Operations area for eight years. Prior to that, he worked in the Private Practitioner Centre, the Refugee Documentation Centre, and the Training Unit. Mr. Deegan graduated from University College Dublin in 2002 with a BA in History and Politics and obtained an MA in Politics from UCD in 2003. He later attended Dublin Institute of Technology (now Technological University Dublin) where he obtained an LLB in 2014. Mr Deegan was called to the Bar of Ireland in 2016.
John Scanlon is an Assistant Director and the Legal Aid Board’s Data Protection Officer. He joined the Board’s Refugee Documentation Centre in 2016 and has subsequently worked as the Board’s Research Manager in the Strategy Unit in 2019. He has a background in academic research and social and economic policy analysis.