A Fine Gael councillor once told me that managing FG members was like trying to herd cats - her point being that unfortunately Fine Gael tends to attract people who think for themselves and are less likely to tow the line.

This can be a virtue. It should mean that our average footsoldier is blessed with the ability to be responsive to changing situations and ready to adapt to their surroundings. Unfortunately, it also leads to people going on solo-runs without considering the ‘Big Picture’.

This has been an issue in the party for years, and at the highest levels lead to splits and intrigues at times when our collective focus should have been on the enemies without not the perceived enemies within.

The last week has given two classic examples of how a lone dissenting voice in the echo chamber of the media can turn opportunity into unnecessary difficulty.

Last Monday, on Questions and Answers, a Ballbriggan Town Councillor Sean Browne said that it gave him no pleasure to call Enda’s leadership into question. While it might not have given him pleasure, he certainly didn’t say it by accident as it had little to do with the topic under discussion. Instead, to Mary Hanafin’s grinning pleasure, he turned the departure of Bertie Ahern under a cloud of controversy into a reflection on Enda Kenny. So are defeats snatched from the jaws of victory.

Today’s Independent contains a letter from Darren Mac An Phíora, a former party member, on the same lines. Mr Mac An Phíora made the same points on politics.ie in the last few days, which is a very different environment to the national press.

P.ie is full of rank of file party activists, who typically post off their own bat, and not from any position of rank or authority. That means that the posts can be viewed in that specific, low level context. The national press do not make that distinction, and to casual readers, a letter from a relatively new member, who has resigned from the party, and who never met Enda or held branch office, could be mistaken for a wider rot.

The echo chamber is a good metaphor for these kind of statements. By making them on national television or a leading newspaper, two lone voices generate the kind of unwelcome air of dissent that no party needs. Last week the party saw off our electoral nemesis, and the united focus should now be on returning political discourse to real issues and presenting an alternative to years of FF misrule. This is no time for public self-criticism.

It’s a shame that the two gentlemen didn’t see fit to work through the party structures to affect change. As Garrett Fitzgerald put it, one of the reasons to get involved in party politics is to make a positive change. Griping in public isn’t constructive and it doesn’t help.