SELECTION PROCESS:DIFFERING VIEWS were expressed by delegates on Fine Gael's "one-member-one-vote" method of choosing election candidates at party conventions.
Some argued for a return to a version of the system whereby delegates representing branches of the party selected candidates.
However, conference made no decision on the issue. MEP Jim Higgins said a working group would consider views expressed by both sides.
Limerick delegate Cian Kelly, who supported the retention of the existing system, argued that there should be a vote. “The members are here and are ready to speak on the issue . . . there is no need for a subcommittee or anybody else to decide.”
To applause, Mr Kelly said the issue had been kicked to touch at an ardfheis to be decided at a conference. “It does not need to be decided in a committee room up in Mount Street.”
Mr Higgins said he knew the point being made. “We do not have the power, and I am not going to have a straw poll.”
Opposing the current system, Clare TD Pat Breen said somebody “with loads of money, dirty rich, can affiliate 50 or 100 people over two years, and that person can be selected as a candidate for Fine Gael in an election”.
He said there was a lot of misunderstanding about what was involved. It was not a question of going back to the traditional system delegating-voting system. “We said that we should have a system whereby we can stop this ‘rent-a-crowd’ coming to selection conventions and agms.”
Chairman of the party’s executive council Brian Murphy said that one-member one-vote was the best available system.
“I acknowledge, and I think everybody acknowledges, that there are difficulties with the system,” he added. “But there are difficulties with any system by which you hold elections.”
Mr Murphy said the system meant party members made the decision on selecting candidates.
“If we want to have a strong, vibrant party, we have to give the membership an important role through having the right for all members, and not a certain number which was the delegate system, the right to have a say,” Mr Murphy added.
He said the system meant that anybody who wanted to be a candidate had to go and talk to party members.
He claimed the system had “energised the party”.