Labour working to maintain 'yes' momentum and to get vote out
Issued : Tuesday 10 June, 2008
Statement by Joe Costello TD
Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with responsibility for Trade and Development
On the 12th December 2007 the Labour Party held its first press conference to launch our publication of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Exactly six months later we will vote on the Lisbon Reform Treaty on 12th June.
In those six months our Campaign Committee including Proinsias DeRossa MEP, Michael D. Higgins TD and former Minister for Education, Niamh Breathnach, has met weekly and sometimes more often.
Literature
Because of the complex nature of the Treaty our first objective was to inform our own members with high quality literature. In particular we prepared three substantial publications supplemented by a range of easy-to-read leaflets.
We have sent two mail-shots of information to our 8,000 members and the Party Leader has just sent a final letter to all members urging them to make a sustained effort over the remaining days of the campaign.
As Director of Elections I will email our members today and will text them on Wednesday.
Posters
You will have seen our extensive range of postering through our outdoor advertising and billboard campaign, use of bus shelters, rail stations, roadside postering, admobiles, penguin stands and large quantities of lamppost posters.
We have incentivised our public representatives to campaign through personalised candidate posters and literature which will complement our National campaign through our network of councillors, local election candidates and Members of the Oireachtas.
Internet
At the outset of the campaign we decided to make full use of the internet to promote the Yes campaign. All material produced by the Labour Party was available online. We also conducted a steady dialogue on our blog. Facebook and Bebo pages were set up to engage with members of those social networking sites. Video clips of events were made available on You Tube to promote the campaign and photographs of all events were published on our Flickr photostream. Finally we held a successful competition for the best one-minute video promoting a Yes vote with a prize of €1000.
We are spending a very substantial budget of €200,000 which we have available through existing funds, new fundraising and contributions from Oireachtas Members.
We are now in the last couple of days of the campaign.
The campaign meetings, the press conferences and public meetings, the debates on the airways, the canvassing at churches, doorsteps and shopping centres are virtually over.
It is now a matter of ensuring that the momentum for a 'Yes' vote is maintained and that we get the vote out on the day.
We are mobilising all our members to make a final push for the 12th June. We are confident from our activities on the ground that the vote will be Yes on June 12th.
