FIANNA FÁIL will have expanded its organisation into 29 of Ireland's 32 counties by this evening after the party holds the latest of its historic 'all-Ireland' meetings in Fermanagh.

The party is continuing with its tentative steps towards establishing the party in the north with the launch of the Co Fermanagh Fianna Fáil forum in Enniskillen this afternoon.

Today's meeting comes almost a year after the party's first historic meeting in Crossmaglen in south Armagh last December and just a few weeks after a meeting in Downpatrick that established the party in Co Down.

Despite the party being at historically low support levels in recent opinion polls, it is forging ahead with plans to establish across the north. The Sunday Tribune understands that the party plans to set up the organisation in Antrim, Derry and Tyrone in the new year.

A party spokeswoman said: "Fianna Fáil plans to establish a county forum in each of the six counties in the north."

Cabinet ministers Dermot Ahern and Éamon Ó Cuív, who are both on the party's Northern Ireland strategy committee, will attend today's meeting.

It is understood that the party does not plan to contest Northern Ireland elections in the immediate future.

Meanwhile, new members of the party in the north were reluctant to comment publicly last week on cabinet ministers such as Tánaiste Mary Coughlan publicly criticising consumers from the south for shopping north of the border, thereby undermining Fianna Fáil's commitment to a 32-county Ireland.