Fianna Fáil TDs have played down the threat of a leadership heave against Micheal Martin.
The comments come after a prominent councillor in Kilkenny defected from the party to run against it in May's Dail by-election.
26-year-old councillor Patrick McKee - the deputy chairman of Kilkenny County Council, who's now running for Renua Ireland - says Fianna Fail's leadership is failing younger people.
Although the party is still tipped to win the by-election on May 22, thanks largely to having an experienced and well-known candidate in ex-TD Bobby Aylward, the defection raises the stakes for Micheál Martin.
Fianna Fáil has failed to win the last 17 Dáil by-elections - including six in the current term, when the party has been the largest in opposition.
But finance spokesman Michael McGrath, who is tipped as a potential future leader of the party if Micheal Martin were to step aside, says nobody is 'holding a knife to the neck' of anyone else within the party.
Our political correspondent Gavan Reilly filed this report for Today FM's National Lunchtime News:
