Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

If they were for certain other candidates in the ward I was running in, I would be happy to see it happen.

Electronic voting may be the way forward. We all use a great deal of electronics in our daily lives but we are rushing to implement this technology in the European elections and my party believes we should pause for thought before proceeding. If one bought a car in the morning one would get the chance to kick the tyres, but we are not giving the experts the chance to kick the tyres when it comes to this electronic voting system. In other countries computer hackers and programmers have been given a chance to exploit the vulnerabilities of the system, just as one would allow people to tamper with a new telephone box before it is put on the streets. We should give hackers a chance to see what vulnerabilities exist in the new technology and whether those vulnerabilities will cause significant problems.

We must realise that technology changes very quickly. We see advertisements everywhere for Wi-Fi hotspots, places where one can immediately get onto the Internet with one's laptop if one has the appropriate technology. I am not convinced that those in charge of the voting systems around Ireland will be acutely aware of the possible vulnerabilities of the system, such as attaching a Wi-Fi card to a computer to be used in the voting process or allowing a small memory chip, that would fit in one's pocket, to be put into the back of a machine.

I have no doubt all these issues have been considered in detail, but I have not yet seen answers to the very real difficulties exposed by experts who took the time to come before the committee. I do not believe their questions were fully answered. Concerns have been raised about the operation of electronic voting across the water in the US. I have yet to be convinced that the difficulties identified have been completely solved. We should be allowed kick the tyres in more detail than we have so far been allowed to do.

In spite of concerns, we are rushing into launching the whole enterprise tomorrow. The Green Party has serious concerns and is contemplating a legal challenge to the immediate introduction of this system. People's concerns should be addressed in more detail. We are concerned that the paper trail will not exist. Speed must always take a back seat to accuracy. Of course, there are spoiled votes in general elections and other elections. There is a lot of humming and hawing and legal brain power applied to scrutinising every ballot. It is necessary to have some kind of back-up that people can see, not just an electronic back-up of the voters registered, but an independent record that can be consulted at a later stage separate to the electronic modules that ostensibly record the vote. For a Government that claims it wants openness and transparency, this is the bare minimum required. I accept it is not easy to do so and it is unlikely that it can be provided for in the next few months. However, to restore voter confidence in a system about which we are all concerned, we should reverse the decision that has been made. After all, a member of the last Government, Bobby Molloy, said he would not introduce electronic voting unless he got consensus on the issue from all sides in the House, which we have not yet seen.

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