A DUBLIN-BASED organisation has confirmed it is responsible for posters advocating a No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum carrying messages such as “People Died For Your Freedom – Don’t Throw It Away”.
Cóir, which has a registered office on Capel Street, has also erected posters featuring an image of three monkeys and the message: “The New EU Won’t See You, Won’t Hear You, Won’t Speak For You.”
The group said yesterday it had put up 5,500 posters around the country and in the coming days would be launching a newspaper advertisement campaign, a feature on the website YouTube and a roadshow.
Scott Schittl, a campaign co-ordinator with Cóir, said the organisation had an estimated membership of “around 2,000 people”, mainly volunteers, and was entirely funded by individual donations.
He said the group was formed in 2003 by “concerned people”, some of whom would have campaigned against the Nice Treaty. He said it had registered with the Standards in Public Office Commission as a “third party”, as required by law. A spokesman for the commission confirmed this yesterday.
“As far as we’re concerned, they’ve complied to date with all the requirements of the legislation,” he said.
Another of the group’s posters, which are prominent in Dublin city centre and other parts of the country, carries the message: “Lisbon, It’ll Cost You – More Tax: Less Power”.
Cóir’s name and address is included on the posters in small print that is not visible from a few feet away.
It is an offence under the 1992 Electoral Act to post such a notice without the name and address of the publisher, but the relevant section makes no reference to the size of the print.
Asked why the lettering was so small, Mr Schittl said the campaign had been seeking to “emphasise the message”.
“We don’t want to deceive people,” he said. “Also our information is available on our website [www.lisbonvote.com] and in our leaflets.”
He said the posters, for example those portraying the monkeys, were meant to be “eye-catching and funny,” but at the same time reflect how “serious” the treaty was for Ireland.
Cóir was criticised last month by members of the Oireachtas Committee on European Affairs after it emerged it had distributed leaflets in churches and households claiming the Lisbon Treaty could change Irish laws on issues such as abortion, euthanasia and prostitution.
In a statement yesterday, the Labour Party said Cóir shared an office on Capel Street with “ultra-right-wing, fundamentalist” organisations such as Youth Defence and the Pro-Life Alliance.
The building was also the registered address of the Mother and Child campaign during the 2002 Nice referendum.
Mr Schittl confirmed this but said the statement was a “diversion tactic” by those involved in the Yes campaign.
“They don’t want to talk about the Lisbon Treaty and how it replaces the Irish Constitution with a new EU constitution. So it’s all a deflection,” he said.
He said some people involved in the other groups mentioned by Labour “would have been involved in Cóir at the beginning, and would have shared the same ideological background”, as they were “people concerned with life or sovereignty issues”.
He said Cóir did not “vet” individuals involved in its campaign and there was “no conspiracy”.
Labour Party Lisbon referendum campaign director Joe Costello TD claimed the Cóir posters were “some of the most deliberately misleading posters to have appeared advocating a No vote”.
Referring to the “ultra-right-wing” groups based in the same office as Cóir, he claimed:“Many of these people have been associated with opposition to every development in the European Union and every single social reform in this country.
“The same people brought us the ‘Hello Divorce: Goodbye Daddy’ poster in 1996, which is typical of the misleading and alarmist tactics they specialise in.”
He said that judging by the number of posters appearing, Cóir appeared to have “vast sums of money” at its disposal. He was challenging it to disclose the source of funding for its campaign.
A spokeswoman for the pro-treaty Irish Alliance for Europe, which also has a poster with slightly larger, but difficult-to-see details, said she believed its lettering was the “normal size”.