FG Deputy Theresa Ahearn (above) on television in Cairo when the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs visited recently on the invitation of the Egyptian parliament. The presenter of Egypt Today, Dr Mursi Saad el-Din (shown with her) was particularly interested in the role of women in politics and pointed out that of 455 Egyptian MPs only nine are women - and five of them were non-elected. Ahearn told him she didn't agree with a quota system. The Irish delegation of Ahearn, Des O'Malley and Liam Aylward met the Minister for Agriculture Youssef Waly and lobbied on behalf of the Irish cattle trade, particularly for the extension of live exports
The FF/PD Coalition will be three years in power by June and Fine Gael is getting restless. By June 30th, a spokesman said, they will be on "amber alert": conventions will have taken place in targeted constituencies, the Plan for the Nation will have been reviewed and updated (after some poaching by the Finance Bill), special conferences will be well underway and new regional organisers will be in place. Also, it is planned that difficulties will have been resolved between sitting deputies in areas where there are boundary changes and candidates will have committed to a particular constituency.
In a dig at the Cabinet and on the premise that "you don't have to live in Ballaghadereen to be remote from government", the FG front bench is meeting in Clondalkin on Thursday. John Bruton's entire team will gather in the Neilstown Community Centre and when the normal weekly business is finished there will be a round-table discussion with local community leaders, at which drugs, young offenders and early school leavers are on the agenda.
Whether the heavy hitters from FG will get the same enthusiastic reception as the Cabinet did in Roscommon remains to be seen, but it is unlikely the farmers will take their pickets to Neilstown. Four further front bench meetings are planned for the greater Dublin area.
A Plan for the Nation - Fine Gael's Vision of Ireland in 2010 is Fine Gael's version of the Programme for Government and is the starting point of an election manifesto. It was drawn up at a special front-bench meeting in Clonmel last year and finalised in Tullamore last month. Three new regional development officers have been appointed. The former aide-de-camp to Bruton when he was Taoiseach, Maurice McQuillan, has left the Army and will work in Dublin, Elaine Grennan has the Leinster job, and Jim McMahon has responsibility for the south-west.
Unlike Fianna Fail, which gathers in the RDS next weekend, FG will not have an ardfheis this year. Instead two regional delegate conferences one in Munster in May and the other in the east in October are planned.