Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy is quite right in that I will not forecast a date by which we can move to the next stage of trial. I do not agree with the hypothesis underlying the Deputy's question that a VVAT is an absolute sine qua non. It is not used elsewhere and, initially, it was not a key policy issue of concern arising in the context of electronic voting. As the Deputy and anybody who goes to the trouble of reading the literature will be aware — there is significant literature which one can access through the web — not everybody is necessarily sold on the concept of VVAT and there are certainly very practical difficulties.

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