Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

Governments and Departments list their priorities at election time. It amazes me, however, that the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government put electronic voting as one of its priorities, when 50,000 people are on the housing waiting lists over which the Minister of State presides. In addition, many hundreds of people are homeless. The €40 million that is being spent on the introduction of electronic voting could do so much to help such unfortunate people. Who demanded that we should change our voting system? Was there a public outcry in favour of it? Is it being done here only because they have it in Germany and the Netherlands? People want a transparent system they can trust. The way in which the Minister of State, and the Government generally, have gone about this business, has instilled a lack of trust and confidence in the polling system, which is one of the cornerstones of our democracy. If one can get a proper receipt from an ATM machine, one should be able to get a proper record when people vote. People want some sort of transparency in this regard.

People make mistakes but there is no doubt that computers can also go wrong. The Minister of State should address the constitutional position, which was raised by previous speakers. How much will it cost annually to store and service this electronic voting system in each constituency on an ongoing basis? The public relations company that has been engaged to explain the electronic voting system was appointed by the Minister. It should refrain from adopting the biased approach we have witnessed to date. The Minister of State said that explanatory leaflets have had to be withdrawn because of the bias towards Fianna Fáil. As has been stated, the sample ballot papers for the European elections contained no reference to the main Opposition party, Fine Gael. Was this done by accident or design? In my own constituency, Fianna Fáil councillors were invited to attend the information road show that is going around the country, while other councillors were invited only after protesting that they had not received invitations.