The Taoiseach is attending the first meeting of a Fianna Fáil group set up to modernise the party following its poor performance in the June European and local elections.
The group was set up following a slump in the party's support in June to 32 per cent, the party's worst election result since the 1920s.
Its first preference vote fell to its lowest ever in a local government election and it was projected at the time that if these figures were repeated in a general election, the party would suffer the loss of around 20 Dáil seats.
The group is expected to produce proposals to revitalise the party's structures ahead of a special meeting of the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party, which takes place at the Inchydoney Hotel in Co Cork on September 6th and 7th.
Today's meeting, which is taking place at the Merrion Hotel, it is understood will focus on the party's structure. Fianna Fáil has some 55,000 members in 3,000 Fianna Fáil cumainn, and the group, it is understood, will look at a radical restructuring of the organisation.
TDs believe the group will call on local cumainn to organise a monthly canvass of each ward in each constituency, a long-standing practice of the Dublin central constituency organisation led by Mr Ahern.
According to some in the party, this would enable activists to listen to the concerns of local communities "instead of sitting around talking among themselves" at meetings of local cumainn.