FG politician Hussey quits race over gender quotas

A Kerry politician claims he is the victim of “discrimination” after he was dropped as a candidate for next year’s local elections.

Pat Hussey, the mayor of Tralee, said Fine Gael’s “ridiculous” gender quotas could lead to many situations where “you could have a fantastic candidate overlooked for someone who doesn’t know anything at all about politics”.

He said he was in favour of increasing female representation in politics but “they have families and if they want to be politicians they’ll have to pay exorbitant money into creches — it’s all wrong”.