Martin plans tour in bid to rebuild

FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheál Martin will undertake a nationwide tour to meet party activists in a bid to assess how his party can move forward following its devastating election result.

Mr Martin said he would be “touring the country meeting the organisation in every constituency” in a bid to begin the rebuilding exercise.

FF will also hold a youth conference in the next couple of months to encourage the party’s younger members to take an active role in the reconstruction.

In the meantime, Mr Martin is expected to name a revised front bench in time for the first day of the new Dáil tomorrow week.

He lost his deputy leader, Mary Hanafin, in the election, as well as numerous other members of his frontbench such as Mary Coughlan, Pat Carey and John Curran.

Despite the heavy losses, the pool of Fianna Fáil TDs who did get elected is sufficient for Mr Martin to form a frontbench from it.

But he said he would continue his policy of looking beyond TDs when naming the new line-up, as he did with his first frontbench just a few short weeks ago.

Mr Martin mentioned the likes of Averil Power, Mary Fitzpatrick and Lisa Chambers — all of whom polled well in the election but failed to win seats.

“I will be drawing on and harnessing the resources of all members of the party,” he said.

He also spoke of taking a “tough” approach to the forthcoming Seanad elections, indicating he would look for candidates “who want to commit to active politics for the next decade (and) who are anxious to get elected to the Dáil”.

Mr Martin and Fianna Fáil headquarters were criticised for some elements of its candidate strategy in this election.

An example was the party’s failure to get either Mary Hanafin or Barry Andrews to move out of Dun Laoghaire and run in a different constituency.

The two ministers stayed in Dun Laoghaire, resulting in the Fianna Fáil vote being split and both losing their seats.

But Mr Martin insisted there would be a “very clear focus” when it came to the Seanad elections.

He also defended party headquarters, and party general secretary Sean Dorgan in particular, in whom he said he had “full confidence”.

There is a sense among some within the party that headquarters is unfairly taking the blame for a disaster chiefly due to the unpopularity of Brian Cowen’s government and the Taoiseach’s own organisational failures.

Mr Martin said he was determined to renew the party and ensure it could play “a constructive role in Irish political life into the future”.

But the party would have to be “radical” and “creative” in order to achieve that, he added.

He played down suggestions that the party was as much as €3 million in debt, but refused to specify the exact figure.

However, he said FF would look to depend on its members for funding going forward, as the party was calling for an end to corporate donations in politics.

“We will be drawing on the membership in the main,” he said, adding that he was “not fazed” by the party’s financial problems.