A major internal reorganisation of Fianna Fáil is to be carried out over the next few months, following complaints at the parliamentary party's two-day meeting in west Cork.
New rules for cumainn, including instructions to attract new members, are likely, along with efforts to boost the party's presence on the ground in constituencies between elections.
Speaking at the close of the meeting, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said: "We are actively involved in trying to strengthen our cumainn. We deeply appreciate all of our cumann activists who work hard.
"But we also know numerically that you have to keep reinvigorating that. You have to keep on bringing in the new generation from different walks of life.
"We wouldn't be satisfied as of now that we have as broad a range of people as we would like. We are very happy with the people that we have but we have to extend it," he declared.
Accepting that voters had penalised the party in the local elections, the Taoiseach said: "We are not a party that likes losing. There were a lot of factors, but the people speak. It is a democracy, and people are right. You mightn't like it, but people are right. Obviously we feel that we don't get enough credit for a lot of the good things."
Pointing to the improving economic figures, low unemployment and high housing construction, he said the Government had not been able to do some of the things that it wanted to.
However, improving Exchequer revenues offered extra scope. "We can now get on with that. We are in a confident mood that we can do that," Mr Ahern told journalists in Inchydoney.
Rejecting the charges of arrogance levelled against the Cabinet, he said: "I know that people jump on to clichés. I don't think my colleagues are out of touch or anything else."
However, he acknowledged that the demands of the European Union presidency had forced Ministers to divert their attention away from the domestic agenda.
Defending the Government's economic management, he said it had successfully brought the Exchequer's finances through one of the sharpest international downturns in two decades.
"We held the finances absolutely firm. Expenditure is under our own targets. Now we have turned that around, and it looks like we could have growth of between 5 per cent and 6 per cent," he said.
Meanwhile, the Government's general government deficit, the EU measure of a country's finances, could be in surplus by the end of the year.
However, this would still mean that the Exchequer would borrow €1.8 billion this year, although this is sharply down on the €2.8 billion projected on Budget day.
"In all of the economic indicators, bar none, we are doing well. But there are other things to life than the economy," Mr Ahern said.
"We were not born and elected as politicians just to be about the economy. The parliamentary party is enormously anxious on this point. We accept the verdict of the people and we now have to get on and improve it and we will," he declared.
In an attempt to improve communications between backbenchers and Ministers, the Taoiseach intends to appoint TDs to feed non-confidential information back to the parliamentary party.
Backbenchers had "justifiable criticisms" about the poor flow of information because Ministers and Ministers of State got very engaged with their Departments.
TDs appointed to the new posts, which would not be of ministerial rank, would not be entitled to see any papers covered by the Official Secrets Act, or declared confidential by Departments.
They would, he said, "be at least familiar with pending legislation to know what is happening and to be informed", although the idea had not been discussed with the Progressive Democrats.
