THE REFERENDUM Commission has reappointed the public relations firm that ran the marketing and communications campaign for the first Lisbon referendum without running a tender process for the second referendum.
A consortium led by PR consultancy Murray Consultants won the contract for the first Lisbon Referendum in March 2008 following a public tender process. Six other firms competed for the estimated €3.5 million contract at the time.
However, a clause in the original e-tender document stated that the commission had the option to retain the same communications consultant if a further referendum took place within three years. The second referendum will take place on October 2nd next.
The original tender document stated that the successful bidder was expected to advise and assist the commission in the “planning and execution of a public information advertising and media campaign to inform the Irish electorate and the public generally in relation to the . . . referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon.”
However, a report on voting behaviour in the Lisbon referendum prepared for the Department of Foreign Affairs in March this year by the UCD Geary Institute found that “low levels of overall knowledge of what was in the treaty had a very powerful effect on increasing the No vote”.
Secretary to the Referendum Commission David Waddell said that Murray Consultants were appointed through a fair and competitive process and that it was the first time the commission had engaged with a full EU procurement procedure.
In a separate development, PR executive Olivia Buckley, one of two senior executives at Murrays who ran the Lisbon campaign last year, left the company earlier this year and has set up the pro-Lisbon group We Belong. Ms Buckley was also a Fianna Fáil press director from 2002 to 2007.
A spokesman for Murray Consultants strongly denied any question of partiality or bias. He said Ms Buckley left the company in early May and that the company did not begin working on the second Lisbon campaign until July. He added that all staff working on the Lisbon campaign worked to the highest professional and ethical standards and were continuing to do so this time.
It is not yet known how much the Murrays-led consortium, which includes advertising company Direct Marketing Agency (DMA) and media agency Carat Ireland, will be paid for the second Lisbon contract.
The original contract was worth approximately €3.5 million out of the referendum’s total allocated budget of €5 million.
The total budget allocated to the commission for the second Lisbon campaign is €4.2 million.
However, Mr Waddell said that a breakdown of how this money would be allocated was not yet available as the commission was still in the process of finalising its information and communications strategy. He added that the commission would run the campaign “as economically as possible”.
