Declan Costello

Declan Costello (1 August 1926 – 6 June 2011) was an Irish judge, barrister and Fine Gael politician who served as President of the High Court from 1995 to 1998, a Judge of the High Court from 1977 to 1998 and Attorney General of Ireland from 1973 to 1977. He also served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency from 1951 to 1969 and for the Dublin South-West constituency from 1973 to 1977.

The formulator of the Towards a Just Society policy document, Costello was credited with shifting Fine Gael towards the left, As Attorney General, Costello created the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Law Reform Commission, and for this Costello has been called the "most consequential attorney general in the state's history".

In 1948, Costello completed his degree, joined the Irish Bar and began practising law in and around Dublin.

Having a family connection to the party, Costello had been a member of Fine Gael since joining college. In 1951, at the age of just 24, he was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fine Gael TD for the Dublin North-West constituency during that year's general election. He was the youngest member of the house at the time, earning him the informal title of Baby of the Dáil. The following years would significantly influence Costello's political views; his exposure to the poor living conditions of his constituents in Dublin North-west radically altered his views on housing. In 1953, Costello married Joan Fitzsimons. With Joan, Costello would go on to have four sons and two daughters. One of these sons was later found to have autism, and the cause of children with special needs quickly became an area of special concern for Costello, particularly as "his elder brother Wilfrid had been left with a mild mental disability during birth". In the aftermath, a dejected Costello sought to become the party's spokesperson for Finance, but instead was handed the position of spokesperson for health and social welfare. Costello was further frustrated by Cosgrave's limp espousal of the Just Society concept.

Although outside the confines of Fine Gael, Costello continued to remain in the political sphere. He would host parties and meetings of Fine Gael and Labour members, where they would discuss possible Fine Gael/Labour coalitions, how to dislodge Cosgrave as leader of Fine Gael and even the possibility of forming a new political party. When the prospects of an actual Fine Gael/Labour coalition became more and more tangible from 1970 onwards, Costello announced he would stand for the Dáil in the next election. He stood in a different constituency from his previous one, moving to Dublin South-West, but was elected at the 1973 Irish general election. The inclusion of a progressive such as Costello on the Fine Gael ticket helped cement the Fine Gael/Labour coalition.

As Attorney General, Costello refused requests by members of the coalition to have their constituents' minor criminal charges squashed, an established practice in Ireland. Costello sought to depoliticise the office of Attorney General and successfully did so in 1975 upon his establishment of the Director of Public Prosecutions's office. From then on, briefs for criminal cases would be apportioned despite the party relationship. Finding many of his attempts to reform Irish law stifled by a combination of bureaucratic lethargy and defiance from vested interests, Costello founded the Law Reform Commission in 1975. Although the Law Reform Commission lacked resources or political support, in time it was able to produce significant legal reform in Ireland thanks to its institutional status. In 1993, Costello ruled "that the Office of Public Works was not exempt from the planning process". In 1995, Costello ruled that a "withholding tax" was unconstitutional, a decision which was said to have cost the state around £60 million. Researcher Ciara Meehan has suggested that the influence of Pope John XXIII's in 1961 was a clear influence upon the Just Society document.

Costello and his wife Joan had six children together, including Caroline Costello who followed in his footsteps and also became a Judge.

Legacy The impact of Declan Costello's Just Society continued to be felt decades after it was published. The Just Society had been called "a milestone" in the Fine Gael's history and remains frequently referenced. During the 1980s, Garret FitzGerald as Taoiseach was considered to be the champion of the Just Society concept. During the 2017 Fine Gael leadership election between Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney, Coveney put forward that he would bring the party back in line with the concepts stipulated in the Just Society document. It was also during that 2017 leadership contest that leading member of Fine Gael, Paschal Donohoe, published an opinion piece in The Irish Times in which he heavily praised the Just Society document and called for it to once again become a centrepiece of Fine Gael's policies.