Some TDs are renting out at least five properties, others are letting holiday homes in sunny tourist destinations or in plush southside Dublin addresses, and dozens more have shares with financial firms at the centre of the decade-long financial crisis.

The Cabinet will next week discuss the thrust of the abortion referendum question and what specific legislation could follow any yes vote.

A Sligo - Leitrim TD has said people should be allowed to drive after drinking two alcoholic drinks.

Fianna Fáil TDs have said they received a “backlash” over their initial position on water charges as the party yesterday did another U-turn and backed government plans to levy homes and continue metering.

Farm leaders and politicians have criticised what they described as frustrating delays in grant payments and approvals under the new Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS).

Ornua’s new butter packing facility in Mitchelstown is in the midst of a storm of protest by a Co Sligo action group trying to save more than 20 jobs at the Aurivo Co-Operative plant in Achonry.

This constituency could be best described as hodgepodge, taking in four counties and two provinces.

By Juno McEnroe, Irish Examiner Political Reporter

FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheal Martin got a rapturous welcome in Sligo last night when he arrived for the Sligo-North Leitrim constituency convention where two candidates — sitting TD Eamon Scanlon and Senator Marc MacSharry — were ratified to contest the election.

The new leader of Fianna Fáil will be voted in today in a secret ballot. Seventy-two TDs will vote after the re-admission of Jimmy Devins last night.

The four contenders for the leadership of Fianna Fáil will put their cases for support today.

MICHEÁL MARTIN remains the front-runner to be the next Fianna Fáil leader, with the number of TDs publicly declaring they will support him in tomorrow’s vote now in excess of 20.

MICHEÁL MARTIN was first out of the blocks after the Fianna Fáil leadership became vacant — announcing his candidacy for the position and then watching as a steady stream of TDs declared support for him.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen is on the cusp of defeating the Fianna Fáil rebellion after backbenchers lined up to show loyalty to their leader.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen clung on to power against the wishes of many of his Fianna Fáil colleagues who he told if they want him gone they can come and get him.

“THEY gave me nothing and I owe them nothing” was how Jim McDaid summed up his relationship with Fianna Fáil back in 2007, just after he regained his seat on the party’s ticket in Donegal North East.

Ceann Comhairle Seamus Kirk has confirmed the resignation of former minister Jim McDaid from the Dáil.

Renegade TD Jim McDaid is to quit politics, it was confirmed today.

THEY’RE more used to fighting each other in the Dáil and Seanad but a group of cross-party politicians have found a common goal.

HOSPITALS could yet save the Government from death or send it to an early grave.

CASES of farmers with less than 24 acres being fined up to €10,500 for over-claiming EU payments have been highlighted by public representatives.

THE stability of the Government has been questioned by Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore following the resignation of Martin Cullen from his Dáil seat.

SIX Independent TDs have been urged to vote down a series of controversial social welfare cuts before they are passed by the Dáil this evening.

THE Government is confident of shoring up enough support to push through the harshest budget in years following a number of meetings with independent TDs and Fianna Fáil defectors whose votes are crucial to pass it in the Dáil.

THE Government will hold last-minute talks with independent TDs today to ensure it can shore up support needed to push through tomorrow’s budget, which is being flagged as one of the harshest in living memory.

THE looming battle to get the budget through the Dáil became even more daunting for Brian Cowen last night as his knife-edge majority was shaken further.

A CONCILIATORY Taoiseach Brian Cowen has invited four renegade TDs who left his Government in protest at policy decisions to come back to the fold.

Politicians deeply abhor and detest general elections. All recoil at the personal horror of their own uncertainty. TDs are always in a constant state of denial about the prospects of a pending contest. The profound level of private insecurity has to be felt to be believed.

If you stay around long enough in the one position in politics, you will accumulate a lot of enemies. Harney has not lacked for courage or shirked conflict. Like all warriors, eventually the scars of battle take their toll. Too many health commentators, professionals and leaders want rid of her

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern says Fianna Fáil must resolve the difficulties that led to two TDs resigning the party whip.

PRESSURE is growing on the Taoiseach to cut short his holidays and intervene in the pharmacists’ dispute before patients die, after Health Minister Mary Harney last night refused to appoint a mediator to end the escalating row.

BRIAN Cowen faced a deepening leadership crisis last night as Fianna Fáil TDs expressed despair at his failure to hold the party together.

WHEN Brian Cowen became Taoiseach just 15 months ago there was, for a time at least, a sense of optimism that the new brush might sweep clean. There was a feeling that the staleness of the discredited, stultifying Ahern leadership might be replaced with something vigorous and uplifting.

The Tánaiste said she is ‘disappointed’ at the decision of two Fianna Fáil TDs in the North-West to resign the party whip.

The decision by two Fianna Fáil TDs to resign the party whip in a row over cancer services in the north-west has been criticised by lobbyists in the area.

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has lost his outright Dáil majority and his fate now rests on the whim of renegade Fianna Fáil deputies.

THE resignation of two Fianna Fáil TDs from the Parliamentary Party has brought Taoiseach Brian Cowen within a vote of having to dissolve the Dáil.

Fianna Fáil’s grip on the Dáil loosened tonight after two TDs stood down from the parliamentary party over the withdrawal of cancer services in their constituency.

ONE of the most spectacular beaches in the south west, Rossbeigh, Co Kerry, has been further devastated by winter storms.

A SLIGO woman, whose cancer was diagnosed by Fianna Fáil TD Dr Jimmy Devins, said she and other patients are “terribly let down” by the junior minister’s support for plans to downgrade cancer services in the north-west.

A NUMBER of government backbenchers last night expressed concerns that changes to the Government’s Community Childcare Subvention Scheme will cause hardship to working families.

The Government tonight announced the 17 Coalition TDs who will chair Oireachtas Committees and pick up €1.7m in extra pay over the next five years.

Fianna Fáil has taken two seats in Sligo/North Leitrim.