Martin Grady has been given clearance to run in June’s local elections after winning a court case he took against the Department of Housing and Local Government.

Last month, Grady, a third generation politician, was notified by the Department that he was eligible to run for the upcoming election.

Mr Grady is a retained firefighter with Kerry County Council.

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage stated that local authority employees who earn more than the maximum salary paid to a clerical officer may not contest elections.

The circular stated that if a retained firefighter wishes to be nominated for local elections their total earnings for the previous year will be used to determine eligibility.

Grady argued that the retained firefighter’s salary was not close to that of a clerical officer and that government officials were using additional payments like call-out fees to determine his total wage. He said this was unfair as there is no certainty how many times he may or may not be called out any given year.

He took his stance to the district court on Thursday morning where a judge overruled the department’s original stance.

“When I was informed of the circular and statutory instrument after going through it in detail I felt it was unjust to target any public sector employee and take away my democratic right to run for election,” Mr Grady told the Killarney Advertiser.

Mr Grady went through the circular and Statutory Instruments with his solicitor Dan O’ Connor and Barrister Liz Murphy and made the decision to go ahead and fight this matter through the courts.

With less than 24 hours to the court date in Killarney, an updated circular was issued from the Department of Housing and Local Government, where the wording  changed and allowed him to run in the upcoming local elections.

“I’m glad these changes were made however it shouldn’t have taken this to make those changes, Darragh O Brien is the Minister for Housing and Local Government, clearly his focus and priorities weren’t where I feel they should have been on delivering houses and serving the people, where he has the luxury of a full time fire service in Dublin,” added Grady.

“I can assure the people of Killarney Municipal District my focus and priorities will be in the right place, whatever their needs are I’ll be hardworking making sure Killarney is a place for the present and our future generations. I’d like to thank everyone for their support and good wishes.”