45A.—(1) A person shall be qualified for appointment and for nomination for appointment or election to judicial office (within the meaning of the Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2023) where he or she—

(a) is for the time being—

(i) a legal academic of not less than 12 years’ standing who has been employed as such for a continuous period of not less than 2 years immediately before such appointment, or

(ii) subject to subsection (4), the head of a faculty who within the period of 12 months prior to becoming the head of that faculty was either—

(I) a legal academic of not less than 12 years’ standing (2 of which years shall have been continuous), or

(II) the head of another faculty of not less than 4 years’ standing (2 of which years shall have been continuous),

(b) is a qualified barrister (within the meaning of the Act of 2015) or a solicitor who has not been struck off the roll of solicitors (within the meaning of the Act of 2015), and

(c) has practised as a barrister or solicitor for a continuous period of at least 4 years.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), a person is a legal academic where he or she is a permanent member of the academic staff of an educational establishment who—

(a) teaches one or more subjects in the field of law, or

(b) carries out, or supervises the carrying out, of research in one or more such subjects,

whether or not in conjunction with the carrying on by him or her of administrative duties relevant to that teaching, research or supervision.

(3) In computing, for the purposes of subsection (1)(a), the period of time that a person is required to have been a legal academic—

(a) a period of time, other than immediately before such appointment, served by a person as head of a faculty shall be deemed to be a period of time served by him or her as a legal academic, and

(b) a period of time spent by a person successively in employment as a legal academic in 2 or more educational establishments shall be aggregated.

(4) A reference to a person being, or having been the head of a faculty (including the reference to having been the head of another faculty) shall be construed as a reference to being, or having been, in an educational establishment, the dean, director or other overall head (by whatever name called) of a department, school or other faculty where the responsibilities of that person include the carrying on of the activities referred to in subsection (2).

(5) In this section—

"educational establishment" means—

(a) a university to which the Universities Act 1997 applies,

(b) a technological university (within the meaning of the Technological Universities Act 2018 ),

(c) the Honorable Society of King’s Inns,

(d) the Law Society of Ireland, or

(e) an establishment, equivalent to one referred to in paragraphs (a) to (d), in a place outside the State.]