Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

Last week the House was told by a Minister that no legislation was required to bring about electronic voting for the elections in June. We were told there was no need for an independent panel or commission to monitor and advise on the operation of electronic voting, that there was a mechanism in place to allow people spoil their vote if that was their choice and that the Government had confidence in the consultants who were responsible for the advertising campaign on electronic voting, yet the introduction of that had been shown to be entirely partial against my party when it first came about two weeks ago. Will the Leader agree that the handling of this issue by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in particular has been a fiasco from start to finish? Will she agree also that now is the time to work with the Opposition to bring about a consensus on the issue of electronic voting? This country is one of the oldest democracies in western Europe and the bedrock of that democracy has been the public support for our voting system from the foundation of the State. We should not tamper lightly with it. Will the Leader agree that the entire operation needs to be stopped in its tracks until such time as there is consensus among all the parties, which currently is not the case? Will she agree it is time to stop the operation until that consensus is achieved?

In a superb series of articles by Carl O'Brien in The Irish Times over the past number of weeks he has been relaying to the country at large the shambles that exists in terms of helping children who get into difficulty with the law through the Children's Court. It is a superb piece of journalism and I congratulate him on it. Will the Leader consider providing time for a debate on the issue of disturbed children who have found no place in terms of rehabilitation and whose parents cannot deal with them because they are a danger to themselves and to their parents? We should debate this issue because if the series of articles by Mr. O'Brien in The Irish Times has shown us anything it is that there is very little provision for children under the age of 18 who get into this kind of difficulty on a regular basis. I congratulate him on an excellent piece of journalism.