A NEW organisation set up to campaign for a No vote in the forthcoming bail referendum said yesterday it will be approaching the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, for funding. Ms Aileen Donnelly, of the Right to Bail Campaign, told a press conference in Dublin the body has no money but would seek to discuss with Mrs Owen funding for both sides of the campaign.
Mr Brian Gallagher, of the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace, estimated that the bail referendum will cost between £2.5 million and £3.5 million based on the reported cost of the divorce referendum.
A solicitor, Mr Michael Farrell said the Government had been panicked into holding a bail referendum because of "lurid publicity about crime". He said it was essentially a public relations exercise.
Ms Donnelly said the campaign had been formed by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the Irish Penal Reform Trust and a number of concerned individuals who believed that "the Government's proposed amendment to the Constitution represents a serious threat to civil liberties and human rights".
Backers of the campaign believe the proposal to restrict the right to bail will lead to innocent people being sent to prison and will overburden "the already chaotic and overcrowded prison system". Mr Farrell claimed an absurd situation would develop where convicted people would have to be released to make way for unconvicted people.
Ms Donnelly said they were also concerned that the planned referendum would provide an excuse "for failing once again to grapple properly with the drugs problem, which is the underlying rather of so much of our crime rate".
The campaign believes the Government's proposal would introduce a form of preventative detention which has no place in the current legal system and would undermine the presumption of innocence which forms the basis of the criminal justice system.