THE Catholic Archbishop of Dublin has described as "completely untrue" reports that he had called for rejection of the bail changes proposed in the referendum.
Speaking at a Mass to mark the "50th anniversary of the United Nations yesterday, Dr Desmond Connell said: "My concern is that the issue be discussed so that people be fully informed about its seriousness. I shall be offering no advice to anyone, about how he or [she should vote.
The director of Fine Gael's Yes to Bail Reform Campaign, Mr Charles Flanagan, said last night he was "very pleased Dr Connell had clarified the matter".
He had been "concerned" by the archbishop's statement last Friday but was reassured to hear Dr Connell was not advising people how to vote.
Giving the graduation address at the Mater Dei Institute of Education in Dublin last Friday, Dr Connell expressed gratitude to his auxiliary bishop, Dr Eamonn Walsh, and to the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace for its interventions in the referendum debate.
Dr Walsh, a barrister and chaplain at Mountjoy women's prison, had criticised the proposed constitutional amendment as ill thought out and one which might in time be judged irresponsible.
The ICJP, which advises the Hierarchy on justice issues, said the change would lead to people being interned without trial for a limited period on the word of a senior Garda officer.
Dr Connell said last Friday that without such contributions there would be "too little debate on an important issue about which people have a right to be fully informed".
But he added that his "principal concern" went deeper than reform of the law.
"I do not believe that we can succeed in reversing present trends towards lawlessness and crime unless we tackle the weakening of moral convictions which lies at the source of our current malaise."
The Labour Party spokeswoman on the bail referendum, the Minister of State, Ms Joan Burton, has taken issue with the statements from the ICJP last week.
The right to bail was not absolute at present, she said. "Every day in our courts judges have to make assessments of whether or not people charged with crimes are likely to interfere with witnesses or with evidence or whether they are likely to turn up for trial," she added.
They [judges] are required to predict the likely future behaviour of the people concerned."
In doing so they did not refuse "bail "simply on the word of a garda", but took all relevant factors into account.
The proposed change meant judges would have one additional factor to weigh up, she said. "They will be allowed to assess whether or not the person charged is likely to offend again if released on bail.
It was "untrue" that the granting or refusal of bail was a matter for gardai.
"It will continue to be a matter for the judge and any decision to refuse bail will have to come back to the courts for review after four months," she said.
Urging a No vote in the referendum, Dr Joe McCarroll, national secretary of Family Solidarity, said a Yes vote watered down the presumption of innocence, legalised preventive detention and criminalised presumed intent.
The change failed to define serious" crime clearly, and draft legislation - "so we could evaluate how the amendment will be used" - had not been published as promised, he said.
The proposed change was "a badly thought out, disproportionate, knee jerk amendment likely to be targeted on the poor", he concluded.
The Right to Bail Campaign has accused the Progressive Democrats of "deliberately giving misleading information" at the launch of its Yes campaign.
It said the party had put words he did not utter into the mouth of the Garda Commissioner, regarding figures for crime committed by people on bail.
"The Commissioner did not give a figure of 12,000 for crimes committed by people on bail," it said. "In fact, there are no accurate figures."
