THE Right to Bail Campaign said last night that Judge Gillian Hussey was "absolutely correct" when she described next Thursday referendum as nonsense.
Family Solidarity also supported her remarks, but a senior member of Fine Gael described the "broadside swipe" from the judge as "quite extraordinary".
The District Judge made her remarks while hearing a case at Kilmainham Court. "Why are we talking about bail laws when sentences are not being served?" she asked.
Judge Hussey continued: "For the first time in my life, I am not going to vote ... I will not vote on nonsense and that is what this is."
She said she had come to her decision very reluctantly: "I have been sitting here in Kilmainham for 10 1/2 years and year after year after year, I keep seeing prison sentences not being served. I do not see any reason for having a change in bail laws if sentences are being served."
Mr Brian Gallagher of the Right to Bail Campaign said the District Justice was "speaking the truth" when she made her remarks.
"What Judge Hussey said is of course absolutely correct. She says there would be no reason to change the bail laws if sentences were being served and that is absolutely true.
"The fact is that in 1993, which is the last year for which we have statistics, almost 3,500 people were given early release from prison."
There were many examples of people committing crime on early release and this pointed to the utter futility "of the referendum.
"Not only will the bail referendum not help matters but it will actually make things worse.
The Right to Bail Campaign had talked to many prison chaplains and doctors who had all taken the view that the referendum would cause an increase in the number of early releases. "That is an incontrovertible fact."
But the director of the Fine Gael campaign for a Yes vote, Mr Charles Flanagan TD, said that "as a citizen of the State she [Judge Hussey] is entitled to vote whatever way she likes in the referendum but I am sure she recognises the separation of powers under the Constitution and from that point of view her broadside swipe at politicians from the bench, was extraordinary.
"We as legislators have been particularly temperate in our comments on the judiciary and I would certainly respect at all times the independence of the judiciary and the judicial process.
"Having said that, I would disagree with her because I believe it is timely to have a review of our bail laws, which is what this referendum is."
Similar reviews had taken place in every English speaking parliamentary democracy in the last 30 years.
"It is the only component of the Government's anti crime package upon which the people must be consulted and we are asking them to allow us to make an appropriate and fitting change."
Mr Flanagan continued: "For any judge to use the bench as a platform for public comment in the course of a campaign is quite extraordinary".
Dr Joe McCarroll of Family Solidarity said in a statement: "If a judge who is dealing with the very situations this amendment was designed to address has so little regard for the Government's proposal that she describes it from the bench as `nonsense', then surely, to be on the safe side, the rest of us should vote against it."
In England and Wales, which already had the kind of bail regime proposed in the referendum, the percentage of crime committed on bail was higher than in this jurisdiction.