By Elaine Loughlin

The Together For Yes campaign hopes to raise hundreds of thousands of euro through a crowdfunding campaign as the referendum campaigns gear up.

Launching their poster campaign in Dublin city centre this morning, the Together For Yes group said they have a target of €500,000 but have already raised around €170,000 through individual donations, fundraising events and online contributions.

Together For Yes co-director Ailbhe Smyth said: "We are raising funding ourselves and our fundraising is in full spate at the moment and it's going pretty well and we feel pretty confident about that.

"It's not for us to be adding up what the other side are doing, we are more focused on what we are doing and how we are fundraising and that's going well."

She added that the group would be launching a crowdfunding campaign later in the week.

Speaking at the launch Orla O'Connor, director of the National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI) said she believes the result of the referendum to repeal the eighth will be "close" but said the most important thing is providing the facts to allow people make up their minds.

We have six weeks to the campaign and as I have said the posters are going to be going up all around the country and people are only really now starting to engage on the discussion around the referendum.

"Yes I think it will be close, but certainly from what we are hearing from all around the country is that people in Ireland are compassionate and they do care about their women and they want to show their support in terms of removing this from the Constitution because they know that the eighth amendment causes harm to women."

She said the Constitution is not the place for these "private and personal" issues.

"What is important in this campaign is that the facts and the evidence get out there so that we hear the stories of women who have to travel, women who are taking abortion pills on their own in secrecy and that is going to be really important in the next six weeks," she said.