A High Court Challenge against the implementation of gender quotas issued by Fianna Fáil member Brian Mohan has been dismissed today.
Mohan took the case as he had hoped to run for FF in the Dublin Central constituency in the upcoming general election. However, the party issued a directive that only one candidate could be chosen and the individual had to be a woman.
Currently, a party will have its State funding halved unless 30% of its general election candidates are female, with this target due to increase in seven years to 40% according to RTÉ News.
Mohan’s lawyer claimed that because the directive was not issued by the party itself, he should have had a chance to run.
However Justice David Keane dismissed Mohan’s arguments saying he failed to provide evidence that FF would struggle without State funding, and he failed to prove his exclusion from the running was as a result of the legislation rather than a decision made by the party.
Mohan has announced that he will be appealing the decision:
Will be moving forward with the appeal,which was always going to happen whomever won or lost,enjoy the chat about me everyone #genderquotas
— Brian Mohan (@Brianpmohan) February 2, 2016
The gender quota was originally introduced to ensure more female voices were representing Irish women in government as the majority of Irish politicians are male, and have been throughout the history of the State.
