Is #marref no campaign only spending €200k? 

Some people in the No campaign are claiming that the No side is only spending €200,000 nationwide… 

  
Here is a simple calculation that explodes this myth.
From many years of experience of running election campaigns I know that in a 4 seat Dáil constituency you need to have at least 1,000 lamp post posters to have a decent and noticeable presence during an election campaign.

Based on my observations in the two Dublin constituencies I would know best (Dublin South Central and Dublin South East) the combined No campaigns have put up at least that number. Indeed, the high visibility of their posters (and they have done at least two poster runs so far) suggests that they have put up anywhere between 1,200 and 1,500 posters in each constituency. 

Taking the lower end of this spectrum, this suggests approx 350 posters per TD in each constituency.

If you extrapolate this very conservative estimate to the whole country (and it is a very conservative estimate as large disperse rural areas require more posters) this gives you a nationwide figure of:

                      350 x 166 = 58,100

At an approx min cost of €6 per poster (based on the best price you will get for screen printing in bulk) to cover the price of the corriboard and printing this gives you a total cost of €348,600 BEFORE you factor in the costs of the plastic cable ties and labour costs, by all accounts most of the posters were put up by paid workers.

This leaves you with very little change from €600,000 for postering alone – never mind the countless professionally delivered leaflets.

€200,000 my a……