About

Joining the Department of Finance as the only lawyer in 2009 in the aftermath of the worldwide crash is testament to Antoine Mac Donncha’s resilience as a pioneering in-house counsel in the public sector. Mac Donncha says: ‘I am enormously proud of the work I have been involved in over the last five years in particular. I have not just had a front seat while the state’s history has unfolded, I have been on the stage, albeit in a supporting role’. Under Mac Donncha’s management the legal team has now expanded and is involved in all legislation brought forward by the department, integrating legal expertise in the policy formulation framework of the department. On external challenges for the legal function MacDonncha admits: ‘Ireland weathered an unprecedented crisis in 2012 and has succeeded in normalising our access to sovereign debt markets and emerging from the financial crises’. Amongst the highlights of his career Mac Donncha established the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) in 2009 which took over €65bn loans from Irish banks and liquidated the IBRC. Mac Donncha was also central to the negotiation of the loan agreements Ireland entered into with external lenders in 2011.