Dr. Geoffrey Shannon is a solicitor and senior lecturer in family law. He is the deputy director of Education at the Law Society of Ireland. Between 2006 and 2019 he held the position of Special Rapporteur on Child Protection. He is the recipient of several awards for his work in the area of children's rights in national and international family law. These include the 2005 JCI Outstanding Person of the Year Award, the 2006 Canon Maurice Handy Award and the 2013 Irish Law Award. Dr. Shannon has written or co-written 29 books including the first major Irish book on the law relating to children: Child Law.

Dr. Shannon's expertise in the adoption area has been acknowledged at an international level. In March 2013, for example, he was selected from a panel of international experts on adoption law to represent the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) before the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Union.

Orlaith is a practicing solicitor with a particular expertise in family law. Ms Traynor has vast experience in the area of adoption having previously served as Deputy Chairperson on An Bord Uchtála for many years.

Patrick is a retired District Court Judge, who studied in Dublin, Leyden and Amsterdam. Before being appointed as a Judge he served as a practicing solicitor for over 30 years. He was a previous member of An Bord Uchtála and was Chairperson of an adoption society.

In 2014 he was appointed as the Garda Confidential Recipient. Patrick is a serving member of the Board of My Legacy. He was an arbitrator for many years, and was also Chairman of Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company.

Anne has worked for over thirty years as a psychologist and psychotherapist. She has worked with children and teenagers, and also with parents, families and carers in a variety of educational and mental health services. Ms O’ Flaherty has an interest and commitment to interagency work, in order to promote an increased understanding of young people’s psychological needs.

Paul is a registered social worker with over 35 years of experience in children’s services. He has held a number of practitioner and management positions in the areas of child welfare and protection, alternative care, mental health, homelessness, addiction and adoption.

Mr Harrison is recently retired from the Child and Family Agency, where he served on the national management team as Director of Policy and Strategy, and held overall responsibility for the Agency’s National Adoption Service.

Helen is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin, where she lectures in child protection practice and policy to undergraduate and postgraduate students. She has led a number of commissioned research projects on child protection, from which she has published papers and peer reviewed articles. Most recently, she co-authored a chapter entitled 'Child Welfare and Protection in Ireland: Déjà Vu all over again?' in Social Work in Ireland, published by Palgrave in 2015. She is the chair of the National Review Panel that investigates the deaths of children who are known to child protection services.

Margo is a retired child and adolescent psychiatrist. She was Director of St. Clare’s Child Sexual Abuse Assessment and Therapy Service in Temple Street Children’s University Hospital for 10 years and also the Clinical Director of the Liaison Mental Health Service in Temple Street for many years. She has a special interest in parent/child attachment issues.