REFERENDUM COMMISSION:THE REFERENDUM Commission yesterday defended its €5.8 million public awareness campaign for the Lisbon Treaty, pointing to high voter turnout and to "positive public feedback" on its booklet and website.
A spokesman said the commission had conducted its most extensive ever campaign in fulfilling its mandate to explain the amendment, to promote public awareness and to maximise voter turnout.
The spokesman said turnout was much higher than anticipated, that the advertising (depicting halves of bodies) had been deemed effective in directing people to the booklet, and that there was positive feedback in terms of understanding the issues from those who read the explanations. He said there were extensive campaigns on the web, on networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook, and on the video-sharing site, YouTube. The number of hits on its website was also high.
The comments came in the wake of a number of criticisms of the commission's campaign on Friday, with one Fine Gael TD strongly criticising its advertising campaign.
A source close to the commission noted it had operated under incredible time, legal and logistical constraints.
There had been previous calls to put the commission on a permanent standing basis, to allow it more time to prepare and to plan, the source said. As it is, the commission has to complete all its work - with onerous obligations - in a very short period of time, less than three months.
"The task is to sweat down 398 pages into a digestible size while all the time preserving balance, neutrality and independence," the source said. "That is a very difficult to do."
In specific reference to the high number of people (59 per cent in the last Irish Times poll) who said they struggled to understand the treaty, the source said this specific issue had become a factor very early on in the debate.
" had already taken hold before the commission began its work. It was almost like if people say it often enough, you will believe it. There was enough information out there. You cannot force people to read it."
Some of the criticism had come from Fine Gael's enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar who said the commission's advertising campaign was in his view "absolutely appalling". He said there was a need for a value-for-money audit of the money spent, to see if it had had the desired impact.
"The ad campaign said, 'Here's a picture of a pair of jeans'. It's an absurd proposition. There were 30 per cent of people saying they were voting No because they did not understand."
Labour Party sources said yesterday they believed the commission "did not do a particularly good job". But the sources did accept the commission had had a difficult role to play and it was difficult when you have to explain something as technical as the Lisbon Treaty.
On the No side, David Cochrane of Libertas - which challenged the commission's impartiality during the campaign - said he would like as a citizen to see a breakdown of how the money had been spent.
Former Green MEP Patricia McKenna also criticised the commission during the campaign. Saying she was bitterly disappointed with its role, she qualified that by saying she considered the roots of the problems it faced came from changes in legislation after Nice I that prevented it setting out the Yes and No arguments. "What it was supposed to do was explain the amendment. That it did not do," she added.
