Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Sorry, I thought the Deputy said it was of sound quality. The commission says the main hardware components of the system, including a voting machine is of good quality and design which is robust against failure and well suited to its purpose. Let us move on to the commission's criticism, which relates to the election management software. It states that election software to be used with the existing voting machines and other software components of the system could be developed at a reasonable cost. The overall cost of the software was approximately €500,000. Their point is that it is at very little cost.

Deputy Kenny referred to the paper voting system and correctly quoted from the report. The report states that the paper voting system is moderately superior overall to the chosen electronic system as currently proposed and in some respects only marginally so. The conclusion at the end of that section of the report is that subject to the commission's recommendation being implemented, — which the commission recommends should be implemented — the chosen system has the potential to deliver greater accuracy than the paper system and can provide similarly high levels of secrecy. This is the commission's conclusion.

The Government has not made a decision because we have only received the report and my colleagues have not read the report. I ask Deputy Kenny to be fair.

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