About

Terence G O’Keeffe, is the law agent to the largest local authority in Ireland, Dublin City Council who are responsible for delivering services to the citizens of Dublin in the areas of housing, culture and recreation, community and enterprise, planning and environment, traffic and transportation, fire services, economic development and enterprise. There are currently 18 solicitors on the team along with 38 support staff. The law agents in the team provide a general advisory service to the chief executive and senior management on property and commercial, personal injury and claims management, chancery litigation, freedom of information and data protection. At the same time, the administration section provides support services and an innovative and efficient property and title research section provides a research service to all departments within the entire council. The team has worked on a number of innovations and projects in the past two years including the implementation of a new case management system, advice to the counsel on corporate responsibility for freedom of information and data protection law transferred from the counsel’s HR department to the legal team’s remit as well as an internal restructuring. The team has supported Dublin City Council by providing legal services to the department working on the “Strategic Development Zone” in the Dublin Docklands, as well as wide scale and multi-layered advisory service in relation to homeless and housing crisis. The team also provides its expertise on other issues such as data protection, climate change proposals, and the delivery on council projects like the Poolbeg Incinerator. O’Keeffe, who has been the Law Agent since 1999 and is considered by peers as an innovative and inspirational leader of team, took on the role of data protection officer for the entire organisation during 2017 in response to new regulatory requirements. He has devised and developed his professional team in the face of a difficult recruitment environment in order to be in a position to provide advisory service in new and emerging areas. Assistant law agent Yvonne Kelly has said about her superior that ‘[He] has a “can do” and practical attitude that is appreciated by senior management and has worked hard to secure excellent resources for the law department in the face of competing interests’. As the next most senior lawyer in the law department, Kelly leads the team delivering the legal services in the four areas of property, litigation and claims while providing an advisory service to senior management and professionalising the administration of the delivery of services to the Council. Kelly specialises in planning and environmental law and corporate governance, and describes herself as ‘always looking to new and innovative ways in which to recruit and deliver innovative and practical solutions to legal problems’. Kelly mirrors Terence’s “can do” attitude and inspires confidence with her practical approach. Audrey O’Hara, senior solicitor, is another key figure in the team and leads and manages the freedom of information and data protection units for the council. She is responsible for designing and implementing an information management system and is responsible for the management of GDPR.