Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

One thing the Taoiseach has managed up to now differently from his Ministers is not to convey arrogant dismissiveness of the views of others, but he now seems to be venturing into that and demonstrating lack of sure-footedness in other areas as well. The Commission on Electronic Voting issued a report that was damning in its criticism of the system the Taoiseach now seeks to give the impression was only objected to by the Opposition. While he dismisses so-called experts, those so-called experts were vindicated. They, like this party, opposed the system from the very beginning, explained why, relied on evidence from experts and, unlike this Government which is out of touch, did not dismiss them out of hand.

The Taoiseach is interested only in the Government saving face on this debacle while taxpayers are interested only in saving money. He wasted €52 million of taxpayers' money. He is paying almost €700,000 to store the machines. We now find that we will have to pay millions to buy out the storage leases for machines that we will never use.

I ask the Taoiseach again whether we will use them in the next general election because while his answer was that he agreed with his Minister that we will not use them, he added that we must wait for the report from the commission. Are we or are we not going to use them? By the time the editors get to work and finesse that English, it will be qualified. Can we have a "yes" or "no"? Are we going to use them in the next election or not?

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