Lisbon too important to leave to chance
Issued : Wednesday 30 September, 2009
Statement by Joe Costello TD
Spokesperson on Transport
On the 31st August the Labour Party launched its campaign here in the Merrion Hotel for a ‘Yes’ vote for the Lisbon Treaty Referendum on the 2nd October. The Labour Party was the first political party out of the traps.
On that occasion we outlined our strategy: Our spending was similar to the previous Referendum at approximately €100,000 with a matching sum through our three MEPs. We erected over 8,000 posters, 100 48-Sheet billboards and distributed 1.25 million leaflets throughout the country.
We set up a dedicated website LabourforEurope.ie and engaged in online political debate on various social networking sites regarding the Lisbon Treaty including a Q&A with members of the popular site Boards.ie. Between now and the vote we have a dedicated section of the website where we are asking people to submit questions they may have regarding the treaty and are pushing this out through Twitter, Facebook and our website, with the message “if you don’t know, ask Labour”.
We have co-operated with other like-minded organisations who were seeking a ‘Yes’ vote. We maintained a high level of activity throughout the campaign with numerous media events, nationally and locally.
We travelled the length and breadth of the country to address public and party meetings; we debated with the ‘No’ side; we distributed leaflets in our constituencies; and we canvassed our constituents in shopping centres, traffic hubs and particularly door to door.
We did what we said we would do: we treated the Referendum like a General Election and are continuing to do so until the votes are counted on Saturday 3rd October.
Despite our best efforts and those of many others on the ‘Yes’ side, from recent polls and anecdotally it appears that the ‘No’ side has been picking up the lion’s share of the undecided voters in many parts of the country. It is a worrying trend that has been continuing for the best part of the last week.
Our clear message today is that there can be no let up for even these last couple of days. We will continue to work through Thursday and Friday to get the desired outcome.
The Lisbon Treaty and our future in Europe are too important to leave anything to chance.
A negative outcome cannot be contemplated.
