Martin faces leader threat as FF to survey members
TAOISEACH Micheál Martin’s l eadership of Fianna Fáil is f acing a politically dangerous review next month.
A survey of party members, under the direction of Finance Minister of State Seán Fleming, is due to take place during February and a report will be published in March.
The survey will review the results of the European and Council elections – where after flattering to deceive, Fianna Fáil made minimal gains – and the subsequent general election result.
Mr Fleming pledged the review would be ‘the biggest information gathering process in the history of the party. The data will be gathered in February and the report will come in March.’
A senior source confirmed: ‘The review will focus very specifically on t he performance of t he leadership and it goes up to the election and no further. We will be making no comment on the decision to go into the Coalition.’
Thi s was supported by three-quarters of the members by postal vote.
The source added: ‘It should make for very interesting reading and may have unexpected consequences. It will be a little like the Flannery Report into FG after 2002 with one exception: that came at the start of Enda Kenny’s l eadership, not t he end. It strengthened Enda.’
By contrast, the senior figure noted: ‘ This inquiry is coming nearer to the end than the beginning of Micheál and it is coming at a time where the Government is not papering over the cracks in Fianna Fáil.’
Mr Martin, temporarily, has r easserted control over his unruly party.
But one high- profile f i gure warned: ‘It is a temporary ceasefire. The veterans are disillusioned.
The new young TDs are edgy. Martin has lost Dublin. McAuliffe, Lahart and the rest are all in the O’Callaghan c amp. If t hi s document is particularly critical there could be an accidental democratic revolution.’
The problem, one source warned, ‘with Fleming is that he will be his own man. He is not in the leader’s party or the rebels.’
In the wake of the 2020 election, Mr Fleming said Fianna Fáil had not ‘received a mandate: our votes are down, and our seats are down. I think the people of Ireland voted not to have Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael in government with each other, supporting each other, in coalition, confidence in supply – they voted against all of that.’
Commenting on Mr Fleming’s respected term as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, one senior FF grandee warned: ‘ It will be like the PAC Report and we know how dangerous they can be.’
Mr Fleming, they added, ‘will call it straight and the chips will fall where they may. Micheál will not be sleeping easily through February.’
One chilly FF TD added: ‘ It could yet be a case of beware of the Fleming Inquiry and beware the Ides of March, Micheál.’
‘Micheál will not be sleeping easily’