Austerity as Sinn Féin reuse Lisbon posters

Austerity may not be what they preach, but it is what Sinn Féin have been practicing.

With every penny counting in the battle to win the hearts and minds of voters, Sinn Féin has dusted off some old posters from a previous campaign to boost their presence around the country.

If anyone thought their latest signs urging the public to “Vote No — For a Better Deal in Europe” looked familiar, that’s because they are.

A closer look at these posters, spotted on lamp posts stretching from Galway City to Connemara, reveals the logo www.no2lisbon.ie on the top right-hand corner.

At the bottom are the words “Produced by Director of Referendum Campaign, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn”, a reminder of how a relatively unknown councillor ran the party’s campaign in 2008 before being elected to the Dáil three years later.

Eoin Ó Broin, who was an unsuccessful candidate for the party in last year’s election, is director of this campaign.

The poster, in the blue and yellow colours of the EU flag, was used during the first Lisbon referendum campaign in 2008. The party changed to yellow and red posters in the second Lisbon campaign a year later.

Their current posters are green and yellow and say “Austerity isn’t Working”. But a little bit of cutting back on spending is helping the party boost their poster campaign in the final days before polling.

The Sinn Féin message is still the same, even if the treaty we are voting on is entirely different.