{"id":577675,"date":"2026-07-09T23:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T23:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/577675\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T23:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T23:11:11","slug":"teacher-says-he-was-turned-down-for-ucd-masters-course-in-favour-of-less-qualified-woman-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/577675\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher says he was turned down for UCD master\u2019s course in favour of less-qualified woman \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teacher is pursuing a 24-year-old gender discrimination claim against University College Dublin (UCD)<\/a> alleging it refused him a place on a master\u2019s course despite him being \u201cmore qualified than at least the least-qualified\u201d woman who was chosen ahead of him.<\/p>\n

Patrick Kelly, of Edenderry, Co Offaly, applied to the High Court<\/a> on Thursday seeking permission to cross-examine the university\u2019s director of legal services, Julian Bostridge. Judge Mary Rose Gearty fixed a date in May 2027 for the hearing of the motion.<\/p>\n

The judge set a further date of July 15th for the substantive hearing of the matter, at which time it will be 25 years old.<\/p>\n

Kelly, who is representing himself, has taken his case against UCD , National University of Ireland, Dublin, with the director of the Equality Tribunal as a named notice party.<\/p>\n

He submits that when he applied for a place on a social sciences masters course in March 2002, he was \u201cunder-marked\u201d because of his gender and discriminated against during his course interview. <\/p>\n

In his submissions, he said he was \u201cmore qualified than at least the least-qualified woman applicant\u201d, who was offered a place on the course. <\/p>\n

Kelly submits that he is seeking to compel the delivery of answers to what are termed interrogatories \u2013 or pretrial questions \u2013 regarding his substantive proceedings alleging sex discrimination against UCD under Section 7 (2) (a) of the Equal Status Act 2000.<\/p>\n

He said he submitted 20 interrogatories but received only five answers. He now seeks answers to the remaining 15.<\/p>\n

Over the past 24 years, the case has been before the Circuit Court, the European Court of Justice and the High Court.<\/p>\n

In a responding affidavit for UCD written in June this year, Bostridge submitted that a 2012 judgment by the Circuit Court said that UCD was only \u201ccompelled to answer five out of the 20 interrogatories raised and the balance were disallowed\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bostridge, a solicitor, submitted that the application to cross-examine him is in aid of Kelly\u2019s appeal against this judgment.<\/p>\n

He submitted that the remaining interrogatories go towards facts in the evidential aspect of the case and not legal issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is disputed between the parties is whether or not it is necessary that questions be answered by way of interrogatories and whether they are necessary or appropriate\u201d when a substantive hearing is pending, he submitted.<\/p>\n

Bostridge submitted that there were no conflicts of evidence in the case but \u201cit is a conflict of legal position as to the \u2018status\u2019 of a fact sought to be submitted\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are matters of legal submission, which do not require cross-examination, and will not assist the court in deciding.\u201d <\/p>\n

The judge fixed May 13th of next year for the hearing of the motion on whether Bostridge can be cross-examined by Kelly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teacher is pursuing a 24-year-old gender discrimination claim against University College Dublin (UCD) alleging it refused him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,24443,18,122681,13,14,6,10476,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,15913],"class_list":["post-577675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-circuit-court","tag-eire","tag-european-court-of-justice","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-ucd"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}