Martin in apologetic mood at 1916 memorial

FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheál Martin has pledged his party will “rectify past errors” as he outlined plans to rebuild it “from the ground up”.

He said the previous government “takes the lion’s share of the blame” for decisions that led to the financial crisis, but added that Fine Gael and Labour cannot escape responsibility for “the broad political consensus” that had developed.

A major probe into the failures in Irish banking — the Nyberg Report — will be discussed by the Cabinet tomorrow and published this week.

It is not expected to name any individuals in relation to the banking crisis but will hit out at the prevailing cultures in the financial system.

Mr Martin said it will show there was “systematic failure” and that the political system needs to change. “There was a clear competition between political parties on spending more and reducing revenue. This has been the language of politics for the last 15 years,” he said.

Speaking after the annual Fianna Fáil 1916 commemoration in Arbour Hill, he said Fine Gael and Labour “knew exactly” the problems with the economy before they came into Government, but “they were in denial two years before the election, and they were in denial during the election campaign”. The Government parties had “said things they should not have said and which were not in tune with reality”.

“Now they are not in a position to implement what they said they would do.

“There were systemic failures in the political system over the past decade and, unlike the other parties, I think we in Fianna Fáil are right to accept our responsibility.

“It must now be our objective to do our utmost to rectify past errors and to secure a better future for every single person on this island.”

He used his speech to appeal to “past supporters and lapsed members to return to the party and help with our work of republican renewal”.

He said Fianna Fáil’s founding fathers had “built the party from nothing” and likewise, its members will now “build the party from the ground up”.

A candidate under the age of 30 will run for the party in every local authority area in the 2014 local elections, he said.

And having been left without a single woman TD in the Dáil after the party’s election defeat, Mr Martin announced the establishment of a National Women’s Forum to “advance the cause of women in the party and to ensure a much more significant presence on candidate lists for the next local elections”.

He said Fianna Fáil “stems from a great tradition and it will be renewed” but will be “no easy task and will not be done overnight”.

He quoted the words of Éamon de Valera, 85 years ago: “We hope in particular that the young people of the country, the young men and women, who have not yet definitely affiliated themselves to any political organisation, will join Fianna Fáil and use it as a medium through which they will give their services to the community and to the nation.”