Fianna Fail gears up for 63rd ardfheis

More than 5,500 delegates are expected to attend the Fianna Fail Ardfheis on November 20th-21st, the first since the party returned…

More than 5,500 delegates are expected to attend the Fianna Fail Ardfheis on November 20th-21st, the first since the party returned to Government in the 1997 General Election.

The ardfheis, which will be chaired by Ms Sile de Valera, is the party's 63rd, and probably the last this century.

Only a special conference for local authority members and candidates is planned for next year.

The event begins at Dublin's RDS on Friday evening, November 20th, and the formal business ends on Saturday night with an address by Mr Ahern, his first as Taoiseach.

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The speech will be broadcast live on RTE and on the internet.

Northern Ireland's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, is among the special guests invited to the ardfheis, but is not expected to attend in person.

Motions for debate include a call on the party to disband "dysfunctional cumainn which hold no meetings or church-gate collections", and another urging the party to find alternative means of fund-raising "in view of the fact that many members are now reluctant to collect door-to-door".

Under the heading of Foreign Affairs, motions call for the return of bodies of missing people by paramilitaries and the use of the Government's influence in reforming the RUC, but there is no mention of decommissioning.

The party's accounts for the year show the 1997 national collection raised £187,585, down slightly on the previous year.

Frank McNally

Frank McNally

Frank McNally is an Irish Times journalist and chief writer of An Irish Diary