Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

There are a number of points. People used the machines in the previous general election. There was no controversy leading up to the election about using electronic voting. In fact, the demonstrations that were held for young and old alike, in urban and rural areas, were highly successful and the acceptance rate of the machines in the election was high among those who used them.

People subsequently expressed some views about the speed and the process of how the voting should be done on a slower basis. It was long after that political controversy raged on this issue, when would-be experts — I do not know if they are experts — raised issues about this. Following that, it was agreed that we would set up a Commission on Electronic Voting, which has done a considerable amount of work and research analysing both the hardware and the software and which is due to report this summer.

Voting is a fundamental part of a democracy. If there is not agreement and if people who were in favour of electronic voting have subsequently changed their minds or have become convinced that, unlike the rest of the world, we should have a paper trail or that perhaps we still want to use pens and pencils to vote when the rest of world is moving on——

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