FIANNA FÁIL :FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheál Martin has urged some sitting party Senators to stand aside and allow younger people to go forward for the Seanad election.
Mr Martin has indicated that Fianna Fáil, which had 28 Senators in 2007, will have a diminished number in the 24th Seanad and has said a radical approach will need to be adopted.
One of those who received a letter from Mr Martin yesterday was Cavan-based Senator Martin Brady, a Taoiseach’s nominee to the last Seanad.
“It was about rebuilding the party. The gist of it is: ‘don’t do anything until I ring you’. What that indicates to me is don’t be running, we have other plans, and you’re not part of that plan,” Mr Brady said.
“I just think it was a very bad approach. It has a lot of people annoyed. It would lead you to believe this person [Mr Martin] hadn’t been around for the last 14 years.”
The majority of Senators are elected by members of the incoming Dáil, members of the outgoing Seanad, and members of county councils and city councils.
A number of Senators have already begun canvassing the electorate.
Mr Martin has convened a meeting of Dublin councillors this afternoon to discuss the issue, having met Fianna Fáil representatives on Cork City Council and Cork County Council yesterday.
Some long-serving Senators have agreed with Mr Martin’s approach, with one senior party figure saying: “The day of the professional Senator in Fianna Fáil is gone.”
Voting for the 24th Seanad concludes on April 27th. During the election campaign, Mr Martin said his party would support the abolition of the Seanad if other proposals for the reform of the electoral system and of government were enacted. Fine Gael has pledged to abolish the Seanad.
A former deputy leader of the party, Mary O’Rourke, said yesterday that Fianna Fáil would take two general elections to recover from the electoral defeat.
Ms O’Rourke, who lost her seat in Longford-Westmeath at the weekend, told The Irish Times that Fianna Fáil should focus on selected policy areas to distinguish itself from the rest of the opposition.
On the challenge facing party leader Mr Martin, she said: “He has a mountain to climb. I have offered my services, from the sidelines of course.”
The new party leader “has lots of steel in him”, she said.
On the party’s future, she said: “I don’t think we will ever again be the major force we once were, certainly numerically, but I do think – not after the next election but the one after that – we will again be a force to be reckoned with, as in the days of yore.
“In opposition Fianna Fáil will have Sinn Féin snapping on one side of them and this eclectic group of Independents on the other.”
On the future of the Seanad, she said: “The Seanad should be reformed, not abolished.”