IN HIS oblique way it was the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, who started it. Three weeks ago, he referred during a Blessed Edmund Rice celebration service to "recent disturbing events" - taken to mean, in particular, the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin - and warned that actions by the State might not prevent a drift towards social disorder.
He said although State action "may cut off some poisonous growth, it will not get down to the roots". Journalists interpreted this as a reference to the Government's proposal to stiffen the bail laws, although Dr Connell denied privately he was being that specific. But there is no doubt that he is in sympathy with his auxiliary, Dr Eamonn Walsh's detailed criticism of the bail referendum last weekend.
Bishop Walsh, a chaplain at Mountjoy women's prison, a former chaplain at Arbour Hill and a trained barrister, warned that the constitutional amendment had not been thought out sufficiently, and in time could well be judged irresponsible.
He asked whether the existing powers available to the legislature had yet been fully exhausted. He pointed to the Minister for Justice's own statement on October 8th outlining the amendment, which contained a relatively unremarked upon addendum entitled "other bail legislation".
This announced she was preparing other legislation independent of the constitutional amendment. This would strengthen the 1984 Criminal Justice Act "in relation to the imposition of consecutive sentences for offences committed on bail".
Legal sources say it is now a common practice for the courts to suspend a second sentence for such an offence once the sentence for the primary offence has been handed down.
Mrs Owen said the strengthened legislation would also require people going bail "to guarantee the good behaviour of the accused while on bail" on pain of forfeiting their bail, rather than merely guaranteeing that he or she did not abscond, as is the case at present.
It would also require the actual lodgement of cash or its equivalent by a bailsperson, rather than the usual practice at the moment of merely requiring such a person to show he or she is able to pay up.
Bishop Walsh spoke from a position to the left of Democratic Left when he said it was no coincidence that 75 per cent of those in prison came from high unemployment areas, and wrong doers from other social classes were not filling their share of prison places.
"Our Christian calling asks that we think about this," he said.
He appealed to his flock to "forgo tax concessions in the next Budget" on condition that the savings went exclusively into programmes to help children and young people at risk, to direct their energies and skills away from crime and into activities to build their self respect and hope.
Yesterday, the Bishop of Elphin, Dr Christopher Jones, who has championed travellers and other underprivileged groups for years, agreed with his Dublin colleague. While stressing his abhorrence of crime, he said many usually informed people knew little about the detail of the bail changes being proposed. Some did not even know there was going to be a referendum.
He said there had not been enough public discussion of the issues. He appealed for the same level of resources and urgency that went into the punishment of crime to be devoted to identifying and eradicating its root causes.
"From my own experience of working in social services I've seen that most crime comes from the impoverished, overcrowded, underserviced concrete jungles," he said. "Young people there are born into a culture of crime; they are born losers; they haven't a chance from the beginning."
Although there has been no formal meeting between the bishops about bail, a number - perhaps even a majority - would be strongly in agreement with Bishop Walsh, Bishop Jones and the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace.
The list would be headed by the new Primate, Archbishop Sean Brady; Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam; Bishop Laurence Ryan of Kildare and Leighlin, who presides over the Commission for Justice and Peace; and Bishop John Kirby of Clonfert, the head of the Catholic aid agency, Trocaire.
With politicians queuing to cash in on the perceived panic about the crime wave in this State, it looks as though it will be left up to an unlikely alliance of Catholic churchmen and civil libertarians to argue the unpopular case against changing the bail laws.