A member of Fianna Fáil has lost his legal challenge to the law on gender quotas, which allows State funding to be cut for non-complaint parties.

Brian Mohan claimed it is “political discrimination” and denied him the chance to be picked as an election candidate for Dublin Central.

He argued the law was unconstitutional and said the Oireachtas was acting outside its powers by using State funding to influence an election.

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

However, Mr. Justice Brian Keane rejected his arguments and found he had no legal standing to take the case in the first place.

Speaking afterwards, the DCU student said he would be taking steps to appeal straight away.

“Yeah, I respect of the judge and we’re bitterly disappointed, but we will take the decision to appeal as soon as we can,” said Mohan.

“It wasn’t about running in elections, it was about proving trying a point that I believe in and I still do. We look forward to seeing how the appeal goes.”