Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

——but the Government ignored them and ploughed on. Tossing out a figure of €500,000 is entirely misleading. The commission never recommended anything of that kind. It stated that the system is rescuable, but it does not state whether rescuing it has merit.

Deputy Gilmore has drawn my attention to a very interesting final report from the returning officers in Dublin West and Dublin North, where the system was used in the last general election. It indicates a very significant and unexplained difference between the number of votes cast as recorded by the returning officer and the number of votes recorded on the ballot modules. This was not previously known to me. The number of votes are theoretically greater than the outcome in the two constituencies.

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