FF backbenchers call off meeting after Ahern deal

Fianna Fáil backbenchers have abandoned plans to hold a special meeting next week after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern agreed in principle…

Fianna Fáil backbenchers have abandoned plans to hold a special meeting next week after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern agreed in principle to their plan to set up a new forum to give them a better input into Government policy and the next election manifesto.

Mr Ahern said he welcomed the initiative, just hours after details of it were published in The Irish Times. He told those behind the plan that he would meet some of them next week to discuss establishing a new committee through which party backbenchers can better make their voice heard.

TDs were to receive a letter by e-mail yesterday afternoon, signed by 16 TDs, inviting them to a meeting next Tuesday outside normal party structures to consider setting up a new committee designed to make their views heard by the party leadership. On a visit to Kilkenny yesterday, Mr Ahern met local TD John McGuinness, one of the main drivers of the initiative.

When offering a meeting next week, he asked that the letter not be circulated. Senior party figures were concerned yesterday that the meeting would be seen as representing a "revolt" against the Government, despite the insistence of many of the signatories that they were not "dissidents".

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A Fianna Fáil spokeswoman said Mr Ahern would attend next week's scheduled Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting to discuss the issue. He would also meet a number of the signatories to discuss details of what would be set up. She said he had accepted that such a structure would be established, and what was to be discussed now was the precise mechanism. The planned move reflected major frustration among many backbenchers that the weekly parliamentary party meetings were formulaic gatherings controlled by the party leadership which did not allow them have an effective input into Government policy.

With recent polls showing Fianna Fáil on course to lose a number of Dáil seats, backbenchers are becoming increasingly anxious about how the Government presents itself to voters between now and the general election expected in less than a year.

Several deputies yesterday expressed particular frustration at the handling of the fall-out from the Supreme Court decision striking down legislation on sex offences against minors. Cork North Central TD Noel O'Flynn said the Government had seemed arrogant and out of touch with public feeling, when "a small bit of humility and concern at the early stages" would have calmed the public outcry.

Cork North West TD Michael Moynihan said: "As TDs, issues are being brought to our attention by the public, we raise them, and then they die a death. So we want to set up a coherent group where we debate the issues and we give a clear message to the leadership that this is what we want done."