Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for my absence at the beginning of the meeting, but I have read the submissions. I normally agree with my friend and colleague, Deputy Eric Byrne, but not on the issue of electronic voting. It stems from my belief that democracy is sacred. A certain ceremony goes with its history and fundamental aspects. Part of the ceremony is taking the trouble to vote. The importance of the vote is, in many ways, determined by the extent to which the voter is prepared to make the sacrifice to travel to a polling station to register it. I have travelled abroad to monitor elections in other countries. Holding up one's vote to be scrutinised by everybody is standard practice. I have not participated in a UN-sponsored election monitoring mission where somebody goes to a computer and decides that this is the way the vote is cast. A computer system has yet to be invented that cannot be hacked or cracked or in some way polluted. That is more likely to happen in the future. The vote is not secure in an electronic voting system. It is not necessarily our voting system; it is a fact of life. In the past 15 years an election achieved worldwide attention when an electronic voting system was used. It took a considerable time to come to a conclusion. A large population in a major power voted in that election. Between the long and the short of it, they would have been as well off if a simple ballot paper had been used in the old-fashioned way.

Under the Spanish system, approximately 1.6 million of its diaspora have the right to vote. That is not as significant a proportion of its total population as it would be in Ireland. The Irish diaspora would comprise a more significant proportion of the electorate, which could create constitutional dilemmas. The old adage of no taxation without representation would arise. The impact is much smaller proportionately in the Spanish system.