James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

The Minister said that interdepartmental task force was set up to bring the e-voting project to an orderly conclusion. Does he accept that if a little order has been applied initially the Government would have squandered less taxpayers' money on this expensive project? The sum of €54 million is a huge amount of money to have been squandered by the Government. We hear of what will happen in hospitals throughout the country following cutbacks to be introduced in the budget and the life-threatening consequences of those. The Minister, Deputy Harney spoke today about the serious cutbacks that will be made to health services It is a shame and a sin for such an amount of money to have been squandered by the Government.

Can the Minister provide a more comprehensive figure for the buy-out associated with the termination of storage leases which he admitted will be payable? Leases were taken out for 20 to 25 years to store machines that we all know were obsolete eight years ago - they were duds eight years ago.

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