CANDIDATE SELECTION:FIANNA FÁIL will run a centrally controlled campaign in next year's local elections, with reduced candidate lists in some areas, according to Mr Cowen.
The party suffered major losses in the 2004 local elections, dropping 80 seats to its lowest tally ever partly because of selection mistakes made by local party conventions.
"From my estimation of it at the time and since, there were various candidate strategies adopted at that time which will not be repeated.
"Thirty per cent of those seats were lost on the basis of the candidate strategy that we adopted ourselves. We did have enough votes. We had too many candidates in some places, which meant that we lost the transfer rate across and therefore lost the seat.
"That wasn't the case in all 80, but I would say in 25 or 30 of them it was the case. Since then we have had a lot of investment into local services," he told journalists in Galway yesterday.
The selection of candidates this time will be decided by the party's National Constituencies Commission.
"The NCC has the mandate to deal with the issue. The local organisations will be consulted."
The party's general secretary Seán Dorgan and others have been working for 18 months at local level.
"We have explained what happened the last time, and how we can learn from those mistakes and errors and not repeat them."
The Minister of State for Trade and Commerce, John McGuinness, has said he will not be apologising for what has been described by trade unionists as an outrageous attack on the Civil Service.
Speaking during a visit to Limerick yesterday, Mr McGuinness said he did not see any need to apologise for the remarks, which he said were his personal views.
Mr McGuinness had been asked by the Civil, Public and Services Union (CPSU) to stand down unless he retracted his comments.
