Children rally to the Fine Gael campaign

The unveiling of Fine Gael's referendums campaign yesterday was a relatively sober affair. But coming the morning after Young Fine Gael launched its poster of a naked couple saying "yes, yes, yes" to Europe, the party had obviously felt it needed a cold shower.

This was a breakfast event, after all, and passions were bound to have cooled. So while the posters spoke of "Peace and Harmony" in Northern Ireland and Europe, they also read "Yes ', a slightly less excited version of the Yes favoured by Young Fine Gael.

Meanwhile, outside the press conference venue, John Bruton posed for photographs with eight young children, to illustrate one of the consequences of the party's new European policy.

It was noticeable the children were almost all blond, and this was presumably deliberate as well. This is what future Irish people will look like, if we all say "yes, yes, yes" to enough Swedes and Danes and Germans in the meantime.

But Fine Gael is not used to being sexy, so when it came to the brass tacks of the referendums, it was much more reserved. "Integration rather than assimilation" was what both the Belfast Agreement and the Amsterdam Treaty were about, according to the campaign director, Gay Mitchell; and he was even more discreet when asked how much Fine Gael would be spending.

"A large undisclosed sum," he said coquettishly. But this only inflamed the passions of his media questioners, who wanted to see the sum uncovered there and then. No, no, no, said Gay; yes, yes, yes, panted the questioners. Then, mercifully, the Fine Gael leader thought of another angle on the theme of interpersonal relationships.

The party campaigns would rely heavily on "face-to-face meetings" with constituents, Mr Bruton said. These "don't cost a penny". In the absence of financial figures, Gay Mitchell promised half-a-million leaflet drops, local advertising in every constituency, an 1850 information phoneline and a two-week canvass on the ground. He also promised "other imaginative initiatives", especially to help get across the Amsterdam Treaty, which he conceded was a "very dry subject".

He did not say what Fine Gael's imaginative initiatives might be. But if they follow Young Fine Gael's example, they may only be available under the counter.