SAMANTHA LONG, A Fine Gael local election candidate, who quit the party after claiming females were being ignored is now working for Lucinda Creighton.

Long, who failed to get elected to Dublin City Council last May, has begun working as a secretarial assistant for Creighton, the former Fine Gael minister, in recent weeks.

The move will fuel speculation that Creighton is recruiting potential candidates for a new political party but the Reform Alliance TD insisted yesterday she has hired Long because “she needed a job and I needed a secretary”.

The Dublin South-East deputy told TheJournal.ie that she knew Long already describing her as a “great” secretary who knows the constituency “really well”.

Terenure-based Long ran in the Rathgar-Rathmines ward in the local elections but got just 721 first preference votes and failed to be elected to the council.

She was later named by Fine Gael’s national executive as one of the two women suitable for the vacant Seanad seat. That ended up causing a huge political headache for the government last month following the controversial choice of John McNulty over Long and fellow failed local election candidate Stephanie Regan.

Having being overlooked, Long quit Fine Gael, saying that while she was not “personally disgruntled” she believed the party was “ignoring the talented pool of female candidates and is regressing the gender balance further”.

At the time, Long acknowledged she is “no Lucinda [Creighton]” and insisted she was not trying to “make a headline”.

Long also insisted at the time that she had no intention of returning to politics or running for election again.

She declined to comment when approached at Leinster House yesterday. 

Read: Overlooked Seanad hopeful Samantha Long quits Fine Gael, says party is ignoring females