It has been described as raunchy and explicit, but the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The Young Fine Gael Nice Referendum campaign poster has "livened up a debate dominated by boring politicians and sanctimonious academics", Ms Lucinda Creighton of Young Fine Gael said in Galway last night.
Addressing the final conference of the National Forum on Europe, Ms Creighton said the aim of the poster had been to engage young people, rather than to "pontificate about institutional reform".
Several thousand copies of the poster had been distributed to colleges throughout the State, while leaflets produced by Young Fine Gael also carried the same image.
Although there had been some backlash, the poster had achieved its aim, said Ms Creighton, who was part-author of the image, as director of Young Fine Gael's Nice campaign. The benefits of the EU to young people were overwhelming in the last 30 years, she said, with these benefits ranging from study programmes abroad to cultural exchanges.
The youth branch of Fine Gael firmly believed it was important to stay at the heart of Europe by supporting the Nice Treaty.
Ógra Fianna Fáil also saw Ireland's future at the heart of Europe, Mr Aidan O'Gorman told the forum. Ógra Fianna Fáil believed progress achieved through EU membership in economic, social and cultural policy must be retained and strengthened, he said.
The Taoiseach's commitment to youth participation in democracy would be demonstrated if he had weekend voting for future elections, Mr Ryan Meade of the Green Party told the forum.
For years, requests for weekend voting had fallen on deaf ears, he said, and one could only assume that this was because the Government was "not keen to see the results of greater youth participation in this context". It is almost impossible for young people to be represented significantly within the EU's decision-making structures, Mr Meade added.
Ms Katja Murray, youth project co-ordinator for the Danish presidency, told the forum that youth participation has been a theme of the Danish EU presidency. The European White Paper on Youth reflected a general scepticism among young people about the level of this participation, she said.
This paper was one of several "building blocks" aimed at providing young people with a voice, according to Ms Ruth Griffin, a member of the Irish delegation to last July's youth convention on Europe's future.
Ms Clare Butler of environmental group Gluaiseacht said a vote in favour of Nice would give the unelected European Commission the power to negotiate trade agreements with the World Trade Organisation.
