CÓIR POSTERS:PRO-LISBON campaigners have expressed outrage over the latest poster from Cóir, which suggests that abortion and euthanasia would be introduced to Ireland if the treaty received a majority vote in next week's referendum.
The Cóir poster features photographs of a foetus and an elderly woman with the motto: “Trust EU assurances? Not on their lives. Vote No.”
“I think this is a vile poster,” Prof Brigid Laffan, chairwoman of Ireland for Europe, told a news conference in Dublin’s Smithfield yesterday, organised to highlight the EU’s role in promoting equality for all, especially vulnerable sections of the community.
Rejecting criticism of the poster, however, Richard Greene of Cóir said the new poster raised the issue of the power of the European court and its primacy if Lisbon were passed, which could change euthanasia and abortion if a case were taken.
Speaking last night, he said the posters were “all designed to raise issues that the treaty of Lisbon actually raises. A poster is a small area and the art of postering is to actually get a message and get people debating the issues”.
Despite costing millions the Yes posters did not generate any debate, he added.
Prof Laffan said the treaty was also being misrepresented in other Cóir posters, which stated that the minimum wage would be reduced to €1.84 and in relation to Ireland’s voting power on the European Council.
Special Olympics managing director Mary Davis, speaking in a personal capacity, said in relation to the abortion and euthanasia poster: “I cannot believe that any Irish citizen would create a poster just like the poster that we’re seeing here today. I think it’s vile.”
She wished the people who were putting up such posters would look into their consciences and say: “We’re not going to do this anymore”.
This was “the worst poster” she had seen and she was “ashamed as an Irish person” that it had been created, because of the way it used vulnerable people.
As for the Cóir posters on the minimum wage, she commented: “Nowhere in the treaty that I have read did I see one Article that said the minimum wage would be reduced to €1.84.”