Analysis: Fianna Fáil backbenchers are making known their unhappiness at the Government's performance but Mr Ahern is safe for now, writes Mark Brennock, Political Correspondent
"They are a different crowd", says one senior member of the new Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. "They are not willing to get fed the line and accept it. They won't accept any old rubbish, and when they got it at the Killarney meeting they went looking for and got another meeting with the Chief Whip and party chairman to voice their concerns."
Some people around the Taoiseach agree that they have not yet "got a handle" on some of the newcomers in the much-changed Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. Twenty-one of the 81 Fianna Fáil TDs are first-timers. They have no particular loyalty to senior party figures of old. They become very annoyed when the deeds of their predecessors come back to haunt them at doorsteps, as they have done during the Nice Treaty campaign in the wake of the Flood report. They have recently become new full-time politicians and are determined to make their mark.
Among this new crop, as well as among some older members, there is open discussion of the party leadership. There is no "Bertie must go" campaign, but people are making a cold calculation about what is in their and the party's interests.
One deputy yesterday outlined clearly the case for the prosecution. The cutbacks story was allowed to mushroom over the summer without any response from the Government. It became widely accepted that Fianna Fáil had deceived its way to election victory before there was any serious Government response.
Then there was the National Stadium, "a dead duck since the summer" as this backbencher put it. The issue was allowed to drag on until the Taoiseach was finally seen to be forced to back down in the face of opposition, not just from the PDs but from some of his own Ministers including Charlie McCreevy.
Most worrying for this backbencher and others was Mr Ahern's response to the Flood tribunal report. "Flood said Burke was corrupt, something we all knew or suspected. Yet the Taoiseach couldn't give a clear decisive response to the report. People in the party are asking if he is afraid of something." This deputy said the fear was not only that there could be some revelation to come that was damaging to Mr Ahern. It was also that some future tribunal witness might have an allegation to make that was untrue, but would damage their leader.
Meanwhile Mr Ahern's Ministers have gone public with their views on a number of issues that, backbenchers say, are damaging their efforts in the Nice Treaty campaign. Carlow-Kilkenny deputy Mr John McGuinness spoke for many on RTÉ radio yesterday when he called on the Cabinet to stop portraying themselves as being "all over the place" on a wide range of issues.
In a measured contribution, he said it was "not helpful" to the Nice Treaty campaign to have Ministers holding internal debates on Government policy in public.
Several TDs yesterday expressed amazement at the carry-on over third-level fees. During a two-hour period on Sunday the Minister for Education said he wanted them, the Tánaiste said she would oppose them and the Taoiseach said there were no plans for them, but maybe it would be a good idea one day.
Several backbenchers contacted yesterday shared Mr McGuinness's concern that the Taoiseach should get his Ministers to "face in the same direction. The electorate are intelligent but some members of the Cabinet are not treating them that way."
In the short term, it appears there is little prospect of the discontent within the ranks turning into a revolt against the leader. A loss of the Nice Treaty "would mean we will get a terrible time between now and Christmas" said one TD. But he believes nobody will move against the leader unless the party gets hammered in the local and European elections in 2004.
"But right now there are not enough people in the party willing to put their necks on the block."