Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey has called on supporters of Independent TD Beverley Flynn in Mayo to "do the honourable thing" and resign from Fianna Fáil.
The Minister, who hosted a series of meetings in Mayo this week as part of party reorganisation in the constituency, also confirmed that the Mayo Comhairle Dáil Ceantair has been suspended, and a new organisational change committee has been appointed, chaired by former minister and MEP Gerry Collins.
A separate electoral strategy committee, chaired by Mr Dempsey, is to look at potential candidates for the next election with a view to targeting three of the five seats in the constituency.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Mr Dempsey said a selection convention would be held in Mayo no later than November, but only after a period of reorganisation.
Candidates selected would be given a trial period of up to nine months before approval by the party's national executive, under a new monitoring procedure agreed as part of general party regrouping.
This new approach would apply to every constituency, and every Fianna Fáil member is being contacted to reregister with the party in an effort to update the database, he said.
Members were not being singled out in relation to any "vetting procedure" in this regard, he emphasised.
Reorganisation had already taken place over the last 12 months in Dublin, and other constituencies such as Kildare, where the party lost the recent byelection, were being examined.
Mr Dempsey confirmed he had not been consulted about the decision in late April to disband the Micheál Ó Moráin cumann in Castlebar over its support for Ms Flynn. The cumann is still awaiting a response from party headquarters to its request that senior party officials address it on the reasons for its disbandment.
The decision was taken by the national executive, Mr Dempsey said, and he "would not have expected" to have been consulted about it, even though he was commissioned to compile a report in reorganising the Mayo constituency.
He said the decision related to a specific issue of support for Ms Flynn, and he endorsed the move. "A large number of members of Micheál Ó Moráin agree that you can't have it both ways. I would ask those who still believe they should support Ms Flynn as an Independent candidate to do the honourable thing and resign from the party."
The organisation change committee chaired by Mr Collins includes one county and urban councillor, the chair of the former Comhairle Dáil Ceantair, Joe Gunning, and three members of the national executive. It has been given a deadline of the end of September to reduce cumainn from 261 to 180, to reduce comhairle ceantair from 18 to seven, with the aim of reinstating a Comhairle Dáil Ceantair before a selection convention.
It is understood that party headquarters was concerned about the trend towards "paper" cumainn, which was at its most acute in Mayo, where the number of cumainn registering would increase significantly during a selection convention year. Each cumann or basic unit of the party has three votes at a selection convention.
Mr Gunning said he favoured the development.
He believed that most of those present at the five meetings in Knock and Westport on Wednesday, which were addressed by Mr Dempsey and party secretary Seán Dorgan, were also supportive. The new committee was not elected but "announced", he said, after 13 people were invited to serve.
