{"id":541705,"date":"2026-07-09T22:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/541705\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T22:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T22:13:13","slug":"teacher-suing-ucd-over-gender-discrimination-claim-seeks-to-cross-examine-colleges-chief-legal-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/541705\/","title":{"rendered":"Teacher suing UCD over gender discrimination claim seeks to cross-examine college’s chief legal officer"},"content":{"rendered":"

A teacher is pursuing a 24-year-old gender discrimination claim against UCD, alleging the university refused him a place on a Master’s course despite him being “more qualified than at least the least-qualified” woman who was chosen ahead of him.<\/p>\n

Patrick Kelly of Edenderry, Co Offaly, applied to the High Court on Thursday seeking permission to cross-examine the university’s director of legal services, Julian Bostridge.<\/p>\n

Judge Mary Rose Gearty fixed a date in May 2027 for the hearing of the motion.<\/p>\n

Judge Gearty 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 has taken his case against University College Dublin, 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 “under-marked” because of his gender and discriminated against during his course interview. In his submissions, he said he was “more qualified than at least the least-qualified woman applicant” who was offered a place on the course.<\/p>\n

Mr Kelly submits that he is seeking to compel the delivery of answers to what are termed ‘interrogatories’ – pre-trial questions – 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, Mr Bostridge submits that a 2012 judgment by the Circuit Court said that UCD were only “compelled to answer five out of the 20 interrogatories raised and the balance were disallowed”.<\/p>\n

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

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

<\/p>\n

\"Teacher<\/p>\n

Ireland<\/p>\n

Teacher faces sanction over criminal conviction for harassing garda\u00ed<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

“What 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”, when a substantive hearing is pending, he submits.<\/p>\n

Bostridge submits that there were no conflicts of evidence in the case but “it is a conflict of legal position as to the ‘status’ of a fact sought to be submitted”.<\/p>\n

“These are matters of legal submission, which do not require cross-examination, and will not assist the court in deciding,” he submits.<\/p>\n

Judge Gearty fixed May 13 of next year for the hearing of the motion on whether Mr Bostridge can be cross-examined by Mr Kelly, who represented himself in the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teacher is pursuing a 24-year-old gender discrimination claim against UCD, alleging the university refused him a place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-541705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}