The location was an appropriate one: the partner and head of the finance department at A&L Goodbody in Dublin is also the firm’s head of aviation and transport finance and, with three colleagues, was attending the ISTAT EMEA event which aims to foster interest in, create opportunities for and give assistance to the global aviation community.

Ms O’Brien’s job description is wide-ranging, including advice relating to the acquisition, leasing, financing and trading of a variety of asset classes that include aircraft, engines, helicopters, ship, rail, machinery and equipment.

The ISTAT conference focuses on aviation and, in July, ALG was recognised as Aviation Firm of the Year at the 2024 China Business Law Journal awards — the fifth consecutive time it has received the plaudit.

It probably isn’t surprising that an Irish legal firm is a leader in this field, as the country enjoys an exceptional position in the aviation sector. It’s estimated that more than half the global aviation fleet is leased, and Irish-based companies account for 50 per cent of that market.

That means some 8,500 full-time equivalent jobs with an annual economic contribution of $975 million, and $327 million each year spent with Irish suppliers every year.

“Obviously Istanbul is a massive hub but the airport seemed inundated with Irish people when we arrived,” Ms O’Brien says. “There aren’t a lot of industries in which having an Irish accent is completely taken as a given but we are now probably the undisputed centre of aircraft leasing.”

Tony Ryan (co-founder of the eponymous Ryanair) was one of the significant pioneers of aircraft leasing back in the 1970s. “Most airlines then owned their own planes and they saw leasing as an opportunity for flexibility — so a huge international market grew out of Ireland,” she explains. 

“Then Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA) collapsed after the recessionary downturn that followed the first Gulf War. It was unfortunate timing rather than anything to do with the company or the idea and many very skilled executives went on to set up leasing companies throughout the world. But from that failure grew an exciting industry when they subsequently came back and rebuilt it in Ireland.”

She says companies such as Avolon, AerCap, SMBC and others now comprise a key part of corporate Ireland. “They have brought major employment and highly skilled jobs to the country – not just in the legal profession but it’s blossomed into a sector of which I knew nothing when growing up but which people are increasingly aware of.”

Ms O’Brien is originally from Wexford, the daughter of a farmer who moved to Kilkenny — so what enticed her into law itself, let alone the specialisms of finance and transport?

“As a family we had no connections with the law, but I knew I wanted to go to university and that I wanted to be a lawyer. Maybe being the middle child of five meant I had to become good at negotiating, so I went to UCD to do law,” she laughs.

“When you join a firm you’re put into several different areas to gain experience in these and when I went into aircraft finance I absolutely relished it and loved the fast-paced, international element to the work. I was dealing with Chinese, Japanese, Indian, American and European companies, people from all around the world doing deals through Ireland.”

She was asked to head up ALG’s China Business Group, which has evolved into the firm’s Asia Business Group.

“It’s very important for Ireland to have that foreign direct investment coming in and initially my role was really to drive our profile in China, though more broadly we are also dealing with investment coming from other Asian countries such as Japan and India,” she explains.

The firm also has a presence in New York and San Francisco. The US is clearly a huge market for aircraft leasing and Boeing’s recent production problems plus interest rate hikes mean that lessors are working out how to pass on these borrowing costs to carriers already dealing with higher fuel and labour expenses — which has basically resulted in a rise in rental fees. 

“There’s a real hunger for aircraft at the moment,” says Ms O’Brien. “There have been some supply chain issues in getting the new aircraft to meet requirements after the Covid pandemic and the leasing companies are now in high demand because airlines are not getting their deliveries as quickly as they’d like from the manufacturers.

“And while leasing will never have 100 per cent of the supply, it has a strong share of the market at the moment, which is driving a lot of deals which we advise on for the lessors and big financial institutions.” 

Ireland’s tax regime, and what she describes as its clarity and transparency, is clearly an advantage for the country.

“A lot of effort, forethought and negotiation went into our double taxation treaties — which aim to prevent the same income from being taxed in both Ireland and the country where the lessee or lessor is located — but if tax is the only tool in your box it’s a precarious way to build an industry,” she says. 

“But that is augmented by an educated workforce, the pipeline of talent coming through and the availability of professional advisors. All of that has meant that when people come to Ireland they are made to feel welcome when they decide to set up here.”

Her own job is remarkably varied – and in terms of the large amounts of financing involved sounds daunting.

“My expertise is on the finance side, but that means dealing with many types of financing every day, be it secured or unsecured capital markets. I’m also dealing with the finance aspects of M&A deals and these companies have seen a huge growth in their needs regarding large and highly complex deals,” she says.

In November this year, Ms O’Brien is looking forward to the Great Ethiopian Run and seeing first-hand the work the flying eye hospital charity Orbis is doing in the country to fight blindness. As this is the 10th anniversary of the ALG Airfinance Run in aid of Orbis Ireland, she thinks it’s the perfect time to experience the impact of the fundraising that’s been here to date.

“I like to run and when I decided to set up a run in Dublin during Airfinance Week” — the largest conference in the air finance industry — “it was met with a few raised eyebrows from colleagues as to why anyone would want to run at 7am on an icy January morning in Dublin. But I persisted, and it’s gone from strength to strength.”

She has also persisted in a mission to enhance diverse and equal opportunities in her area of the law. “I think through encouragement and giving people the right opportunities we can only make things better — allowing them to offer different perspectives, whether in panel discussions or at senior levels in the profession. And I think we’re getting there.”