Fianna F\u00e1il TDs named on a circulated list of so-called rebels have criticised the party leadership at a private meeting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The meeting, the first of the Fianna F\u00e1il parliamentary party since the presidential election, saw \u201cangry contributions\u201d from individuals listed on what has been described as a \u201cnaughty list\u201d, one source said.<\/p>\n
However, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin was not present at the meeting on Wednesday evening, as he is in Brazil for COP30.<\/p>\n
One source at the meeting said there was \u201cdisappointment and anger\u201d over the sharing of the list, with criticism over it coming from sources in Government Buildings.<\/p>\n
The anger erupted last week after the list became public, with the so-called rebels including Cork TDs James O\u2019Connor, Seamus McGrath, and P\u00e1draig O\u2019Sullivan, as well as Erin McGreehan, John McGuinness, John Lahart, Peter \u2018Chap\u2019 Cleere, and Senator Anne Rabbitte.<\/p>\n
It also named several TDs \u2014 part of the \u201cold guard\u201d \u2014 who would welcome change, including Willie O\u2019Dea, Pat \u2018The Cope\u2019 Gallagher, and former Ceann Comhairle Se\u00e1n \u00d3 Feargha\u00edl.<\/p>\n
One TD named on the list, Mr Cleere, told the meeting that he was offended at being labelled a rebel, given that he comes from Kilkenny.<\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s bad enough to be on a naughty list, but as a proud Kilkenny hurling man to be called a rebel is a step too far.\n <\/p>\n
Multiple sources said that party chair, Brendan Smith, criticised the sharing of a list, saying it was \u201cdisrespectful\u201d to TDs.<\/p>\n
Former Ceann Comhairle, Sean \u00d3 Feargha\u00edl, was said to have joked at the meeting about being considered the \u201cold guard\u201d, while being the same age as Mr Martin.<\/p>\n
There were calls for Mr Martin to address the issue surrounding the list, sources said.<\/p>\n
However, chief whip Mary Butler told the meeting that she was not aware of any list.<\/p>\n
It is understood she suggested that it would be \u201ceasy for a journalist\u201d to put a list together and argued that journalists can gauge from members of the party\u2019s public media appearances who is on what side.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Fianna F\u00e1il MEP Barry Cowen made a rare in-person appearance at the meeting to demand action on the nitrates derogation for farmers.<\/p>\n
Mr Cowen is understood to have been well received, telling members that the discussions on the derogation are “too important to sit out”.<\/p>\n
Mr Cowen told the meeting that the Irish State could take a “short-sighted” approach to a European-wide deal on the derogation, which he believes could hurt farmers. He said he has asked for a meeting with the Taoiseach and that Mr Martin should address the parliamentary party.<\/p>\n
The former minister, who is now a member of the European Parliament’s Agriculture committee, said that while he understands the challenge of improving water standards, European demands that dairy farms also be subject to the EU’s Habitats Directive would “paralyse” agriculture.<\/p>\n
Mr Cowen said he believes that a deal could be announced when European Agriculture Commissioner Jessika Roswall visits Ireland this week. He said he feared Fianna F\u00e1il could damage itself by celebrating a deal which does damage to its “rural base”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il TDs named on a circulated list of so-called rebels have criticised the party leadership at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[895,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-124131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fianna-fail","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}