Fianna Fáil will get “many” women TDs elected and have much better gender balance in the parliamentary party in a few weeks time, finance spokesman Michael McGrath has said.

The party currently has 21 Dáil seats and all its TDs are men.

Mr McGrath was responding to former Fianna Fáil minister Mary O’Rourke’s criticism of some male party candidates’ “territorial” attitude towards their female running mates.

“That’s not the evidence that I’m hearing on the ground. We’ve 71 candidates. There are 40 tough battles in individual constituencies and you’re always going to have competitive rivalry,” Mr McGrath said.

“But we will get many female TDs elected under the Fianna Fáil banner in this election. I’m not going to put a number on it, but we’ve some outstanding candidates in Dublin and all over the country.

“We’re very confident that we’ll have a much more balanced parliamentary party in a few weeks’ time.”

Mr McGrath was speaking at a Fianna Fáil press conference on Monday.

Of the situation in the Cork South-Central constituency that he shares with Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, Mr McGrath said: “I have a male running mate. He’s the leader of the party and we’re getting on very well!”

Mrs O’Rourke, speaking on The Irish Times Women’s Podcast, was critical of some established Fianna Fáil male candidates’ treatment of female political hopefuls running for the party in the same constituency.

“I’m not going to call names, but I am going to talk about it,” she told interviewer Sara Bardon.

“Politics by its very nature is territorial. So there’s a guy, an incumbent, he’s a TD, and now there’s a woman, and she’s looking to be a TD, and he can be proper nasty to her in different kinds of ways. It’s quite amazing,” she said.

Mrs O’Rourke said she had heard examples of the man telling the woman how they would divide the constituency for the purpose of canvassing for votes.

“I think it is territory with a bit of sexism...’After all you are woman and I am a man, so I know better.’ There’s a bit of that in it.”

Mrs O’Rourke was joined on the podcast by National Women’s Council of Ireland director Orla O’Connor and Sophie Kane, a 22-year-old politics graduate from Dublin who will be voting in her first General Election on February 26th.