FF TD admits his parliamentary party is "male, stale and outside the pale"

A Fianna Fáil TD admits his Parliamentary Party is "male, stale and outside the pale".

Timmy Dooley was reacting to the departure of Senator Averil Power yesterday.

He said that he does not agree with her criticism of the party and Micheál Martin.

But responding to a reporter he admitted that the party has an image problem.

"If you narrow your focus to just the parliamentary party it may look unrepresentative. But there are an awful lot of young men and women in our councillor list and throughout our membership who feed into the development of our policy position," said Deputy Dooley.