Brendan Ryan (Labour)

It is a great pity that it takes such enormous effort to get a Government to realise we are not all Luddites because we are wary of the method of electronic voting that is being introduced. The constituents I serve in the NUI are an undemanding group by and large — some say that is why they vote for me. Many a Fianna Fáil member has tried the same route and failed gloriously so I would not make too much of it. However, they rarely are too agitated about matters but this issue has resulted in me being approached by a number of people who not only are not Luddites, but are more expert than I on this issue and they are extraordinarily wary of what the Government proposes to do. I will say no more than that. This is not about hostility to electronic voting but about understanding the limits of what computers can do.

Over the weekend the Government took to itself decisions on how the dormant accounts funds would be disbursed. We had a long debate and an independent body was set up. The Taoiseach said in the Dáil yesterday it was only a small sum of money and that he thought it was a storm in a teacup. To most of us €180 million is a large sum of money. This issue should be debated properly in both Houses of the Oireachtas because until the Oireachtas knows what is going on, it has all the appearances of an election slush fund grabbed by Fianna Fáil, with the collusion of the Progressive Democrats, to buy votes in the local elections.