Taoiseach Enda Kenny launches Fine Gael’s Yes campaign at The Ark.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny launched Fine Gael’s campaign for a Yes vote in the 10 November referendum at The Ark on Monday 15 October.
Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter, and Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar also attended, along with Wayne Dignam, who grew up in State care and is a board member of the Irish Foster Care Association. The Irish Times reported that Mr Dignam, who urged a Yes vote, was taken into State care when he was three, and had been “continually brought back to his family to ‘unsafe and difficult circumstances’ because the law presumed his best interests were always within his family, ‘despite the very clear evidence to the contrary’.”
The referendum is to be held on a Saturday for the first time since the second Nice referendum in 2002, and young people, in particular, are being encouraged to use their vote. At the launch of the childrensreferendum.ie website, Frances Fitzgerald said that she hoped “the Saturday date will attract more voters but it’s up to the young people in the universities now, who have always looked for a Saturday vote, to come out and vote.”
A one-hour TV3 debate on the referendum will be moderated by Vincent Browne on October 31st.