Fianna Fail intends to spend £200,000 on securing a Yes vote in the May 22nd referendum on the Belfast Agreement. The Government Chief Whip, Mr Seamus Brennan, said yesterday the budget for next month's poll was the biggest allocation ever set aside for a referendum.
The Fianna Fail "peace agreement" campaign will be formally launched in Dublin tomorrow. Advertisements pressing for a Yes vote will be shown in cinemas throughout the State.
Addressing his parliamentary party on the issue yesterday, the Taoiseach said he wanted all his party Ministers to visit the 41 constituencies to support the campaign.
Because of the McKenna judgment, which requires the Government to put both sides of the case to the electorate, political parties in Leinster House are under pressure to run their own campaigns.
While Fianna Fail intends to run separate campaigns to endorse the Belfast Agreement and the Amsterdam Treaty, Fine Gael will launch its joint campaign in Dublin today. The party will spend considerably less than Fianna Fail.
The Labour party's Yes campaign on the Amsterdam Treaty will be launched by the leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, on Tuesday next, while the Belfast Agreement campaign will begin tomorrow week.
Young Fine Gael's "Passion for Europe" campaign for a Yes vote on the treaty got under way yesterday. The national chairman, Mr Arthur Lynch, said the vote on the Amsterdam Treaty was "equally important as the Northern Ireland referendum in terms of future implications".
The Government would have only itself to blame if people voted down the treaty because they did not know enough about it.
"The bulk of information is coming from the anti side, who have been using scaremongering tactics and misinformation which paint a completely inaccurate picture of the Amsterdam Treaty," he added.
But, the Green Party TD, Mr John Gormley, expressed concern at what he said was a lack of available copies of the treaty. The Government's campaign to inform the public was totally inadequate.
His party had contacted the head office of all the Dublin libraries but was told none of the city libraries had copies of the treaty. A search for a copy within Government Departments was "equally confusing" and did not lead to him finding one.