Virginia Ryan

Ms Ryan was appointed to the Mater Misericordiae Ltd Board in September 2019 and to the position of Deputy Chair in August 2020.

Ms Ryan was appointed Board Chair of Mater Foundation Limited in August 2020. Ms Ryan has more than thirty years of experience as a lawyer. Ms Ryan is a Legal Member of the Mental Health Review Tribunal Queensland and an inaugural member of the Tribunal’s Reconciliation Working Group. Visiting Queensland Health and private hospital mental health sites throughout Queensland, she interacts with people with mental illness, their families and carers and clinicians. Ms Ryan is a Council Member of Centacare, a Member of Centacare’s Practice Governance and Risk Committee and a Director of Loreto Coorparoo Limited.

Previously, Ms Ryan has been a Senior Member of the federal Administrative Review Tribunal, Commissioner on the Legal Aid Commission of Queensland, a Board member of Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency National Board, and a member of a Catholic school board. Ms Ryan is a former Deputy President of the Mental Health Review Tribunal Queensland. She has extensive experience in administrative law, having been a member of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal and the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. She has been a Registrar in a federal court. Ms Ryan has worked and volunteered in Community Legal Centres including Caxton Legal Centre and Women’s Legal Service Queensland and was the Queensland Convenor of the peak body for community legal centres. She has been an accredited mediator, and is committed to fair processes, collaborative decision making and robust and accountable governance.

Ms Ryan has degrees in Arts and Law from Sydney University, a Diploma in Legal Practice and was admitted to practice in Queensland in 1989.