James Bannon (Fine Gael)

In the interests of Irish democracy, I ask that the Minister answer, even at this late stage, the 41 questions on the electronic voting system. We were told last week that we would have an opportunity at the end of statements on electronic voting to engage in a questions and answers session, but it did not happen. The Minister stated that the system had been verified in the UK and Germany. Within the past week, I have checked on the status of the system in these countries. Following two pilot programmes in the UK, the electoral commission decided the electronic system was not safe and agreed to abandon it for the moment. I visited the province of Bavaria, Germany, three weeks ago and discussed electronic voting with mayors and other elected politicians. The Minister spoke about the testing of the system in Germany, but the Germans do not use it in their regional elections or in the election of mayors. I saw a sample ballot paper from the last mayoral election.

The Germans do not use the system because they do not trust the counting software. This is of great concern to us. We do not want to become the Florida of Europe.