Fuzion Communications has been announced as the winner of the Best Public Affairs Campaign at the prestigious Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII) Awards 2015, for its work with Down Syndrome Ireland (DSI) on one of the most critical and significant public awareness campaigns that gripped Ireland in 2014.

The announcement was made at the award ceremony which took place in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin on Friday 26th July. The winning campaign was centred on the medical card issue, and was an extremely contentious and sensitive one which dominated headlines across local, national and international media and ran over a number of months.

Leading PR agency Fuzion Communications launched the lobbying campaign which highlighted the issue of how 50% of people with Down syndrome had either had their discretionary medical cards revoked, or were in danger of losing them, due to cutbacks. The aim was to represent, and be the voice of, thousands of children with Down syndrome who were in danger of losing their discretionary medical cards.

The main objective of the campaign was to raise awareness and fight against the retraction of discretionary medical cards. DSI critically wanted to highlight that as many as 1,000 children were at risk of losing their discretionary medical cards. Ultimately the goal of the public awareness and lobbying campaign was for the reinstatement of the discretionary medical cards for those with Down syndrome.

Deirdre Waldron, Partner in Fuzion Communications stated “We are absolutely thrilled to win this national PRII Award, especially for our work with Down syndrome Ireland. This is our second time winning a PRII Award and it really is such an honour and a great achievement that we are so proud of. We have worked closely with the charity for 6 years, over which time we have built up a deep level of understanding and appreciation of the challenges and complexities faced by those with Down syndrome and their families. It was such an important campaign to work on and we were thrilled with the outcome. The Fuzion team, in both our Cork and Dublin offices, put a huge amount of effort into the campaign and so it’s great to see that hard work recognised through a very successful campaign, and now to win the PRII Award for best Public Affairs Campaign is the icing on the cake.”

Pat Clarke, CEO of Down Syndrome Ireland (DSI) said”We are so grateful to Fuzion for their fantastic work on this pivotal campaign. It’s wonderful that their tireless lobbying, support and dedication has been acknowledged with this prestigious award but yet despite winning the battle we still haven’t won the war in relation the rights of those with Down syndrome. We at Down syndrome Ireland continue to advocate for our members with the support of Fuzion.”