Former Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern has described Ireland's gender quota system as "mad".
It's after a Fianna Fáil councillor Daithi de Róiste was told his name cannot be considered by members to contest the general election, because of his party's struggle to meet gender quotas.
Instead Cllr Catherine Ardagh, the daughter of former TD Seán Ardgah, is the sole Fianna Fáil candidate in the Dublin South Central constituency.
Internal polls in the constituency had shown De Róiste to be in with a chance of taking a seat in the four-seat constituency, after he won nearly 1,300 votes in last year's local elections. Ardagh, in a separate ward, took 857.
Separately the move will also hamper the chances of Brian Mohan, the chairman of Fianna Fáil's constituency branch in Dublin Central.
His constituency will be told it can only nominate a female candidate - which is likely to see either Denis McMorrow or former councillor Mary Fitzpatrick go forward to fight the election.
Fitzpatrick is a regular election candidate, but was famously defeated in 2007 when a voting pact between Bertie Ahern and Cyprian Brady saw the two male candidates elected instead.
Ahern is no longer a Fianna Fail member but attended campaign events for Brian Mohan last year - and he says deciding who gets to contest a seat based on gender isn't acceptable:
De Róiste himself says he disagrees with the concept of gender quotas, and is 'disgusted' with the decision to exclude him from the ticket:
Our political correspondent Gavan Reilly filed this report for Today FM's National Lunchtime News:
