FINE GAEL yesterday queried the size of the financial resources Fianna Fáil put into its Lisbon Treaty campaign.
However, a spokesman for Fianna Fáil said the party had spent €700,000 on its campaign, concentrating on posters and leafleting and such matters.
Spokesmen for both parties were responding to the figures from the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland for the period January to June of this year.
The figures, released following a query to the institute by The Irish Times, show Fianna Fáil having spent €114,814 while Fine Gael spent €485,944 and the Labour Party spent €133,757.
"It would be extraordinary if Brian Cowen failed to put his money where his mouth was to secure what he said was his number one political objective," said a Fine Gael spokesman.
"Fine Gael and others spent significant sums on promoting national campaigns. That was obvious to any member of the public. It is less obvious where Fianna Fáil's supposed €700,000 spend went."
However, Fianna Fáil's spokesman said it spent its budget on such matters as posters and leafleting campaigns.
"There's no question about it," he said.
"The reality is that Fianna Fáil spent its resources in putting together a campaign that involved more lamppost postering, more leaflets and more on the ground work than any other party.
"The results are there to be seen - two-thirds of Fianna Fáil voters voted Yes while 50 per cent of Fine Gael voters voted Yes.
"If Fine Gael thinks a campaign like this is a matter of newspaper and billboard advertising, it is fooling itself."
The figures show that in June Fianna Fáil spent €46,040, compared with Fine Gael's €334,047 (of which €102,858 was by its five MEPs).
Declan Ganley's campaign, Libertas, spent €185,933 in the period to April, €296,747 during the month of May, and €430,072 in June. It spend €247,327 on newspaper advertisements in June, and €32,994 on internet advertising over the period January to June, according to the figures.
A spokesman for the Alliance for Europe said its total expenditure was "circa €500,000 with the two single biggest costs being billboards and poll posters. We have offered to go beyond the Standards in Public Office Commission guidelines and publish our bank statement in full if Libertas are willing to do the same," he said.
