Fórsa has reiterated its concerns about the failure to address the gender imbalance in top local government posts as new figures revealed that just 28% of local authority chief executives are women.

Fianna Fáil TD Robert Troy, who got the statistics through a parliamentary question, said the figure was below the 30% minimum requirement for political parties’ Dáil candidates.

Peter Nolan, the head of Fórsa’s local government and municipal employees’ divisions, said there has been a continuous failure to address the number of women at director of service, senior administrative, and senior engineer grades.