Fianna Fáil's Mayo organisation has defied a directive from the party's national executive not to hold annual general meetings of its cumainn until a full restructuring and rationalisation of the party takes place in the county.
The constituency executive, the Dáil ceantair, voted unanimously this week to give the go-ahead for the meetings that elect party officers for the year.
This is despite the fact that a report is being prepared by Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey on how the constituency should be organised.
The party in Mayo has been in some disarray since the expulsion of Beverley Flynn following the failure of her Supreme Court libel appeal against RTÉ.
Party sources say there is a very large number of cumainn in the constituency, but that some barely function and are what are known as "paper cumainn".
A key objective of the rationalisation is to reduce the number of cumainn in the county. It is understood that Ms Flynn's home town of Castlebar is certain to be targeted by Mr Dempsey's report.
The party is concerned about disputes and inter-cumainn rivalry and the fact that the Castlebar comhairle ceantair has not had a proper annual general meeting for four years.
Strong support for expelled deputy Beverley Flynn from within the Micheál Ó Moráin cumann is another source of concern for party headquarters.
Seven other constituencies are also being reorganised, but Mayo is the only one where the national executive prohibited the holding of annual general meetings.
Substantial elements of the local party claim that headquarters is imposing changes on the local organisation. However, general secretary Seán Dorgan said yesterday the party was taking "a sensible approach to reorganising the party in co-operation with the local organisation to ensure we are capable of taking three seats there at the next general election". He hoped the process would be completed by the end of this month.
Mr Dorgan visited the constituency organisation twice before Christmas, once with Minister for the Environment Dick Roche and again with Mr Dempsey.
However, Mayo Fianna Fáil councillor Damian Ryan, a supporter of Ms Flynn, is very critical of the delay in publishing the report by Mr Dempsey.
"I am unhappy we have been left in limbo for four months," he said. "I am also unhappy that elected representatives in Mayo were never consulted during the compilation of the report." There should be a Mayo solution to a Mayo problem, not a Dublin solution or a Meath solution, he said.
A spokesman for the Mayo Dáil ceantair said members had strong opinions about being prevented from holding the meetings.
"Because of the depth of feeling, we instructed all comhairle ceantair units to instruct the various cumainn to convene their annual general meetings.
"I realise we are flying in the face of an instruction issued by party headquarters. But we are the people running the organisation down here, not them. The people in Mount Street will not be happy with our approach, but they left us with no option."