James Bannon (Fine Gael)

Leaving aside some peripheral matters, this Bill's function is to give official approval to a system of electronic voting for local and European elections in June. Perhaps the Minister of State will excuse me for pointing out that e-voting will not be introduced in June and that currently, the whole area of electronic voting has a massive question mark hanging over it. Given the conclusions reached by the Commission on Electronic Voting, that system now appears to be obsolete and not likely to be introduced again in its current form.

What is the Minister of State doing here today, wasting the time of this House and taxpayers' money discussing a Bill which is now by its very nature irrelevant? Members' time could be better spent considering the Residential Tenancies Bill which should have been before us many months ago. I oppose this Bill in the strongest possible terms and until the Government can present a system that is fully transparent and accountable without spin and deceit, there can be no support from Fine Gael for such legislation.

The Commission on Electronic Voting, which was essentially set up to answer the doubts of the Opposition, predictably found against the introduction of electronic voting in the June elections. Among many other flaws in the system, it discovered it was not possible to obtain access to the full source code of the system, which was deemed necessary to establish its trustworthiness to a level compatible with the critical importance of voting at elections. It also found that tests of the system carried out to date were insufficient to establish its reliability for use at elections in June. It went on to state that the system had not been tested as a whole or certified as being suitable for use in an Irish electorate context by an accredited testing and certification authority.

As one of only two Oireachtas Members to make a submission to the commission, outlining my opposition to the hasty introduction of an unreliable and insecure system, I am delighted to say that democracy has triumphed over an arrogant, incompetent Minister who would not listen when we pointed out the serious flaws. I congratulate the commission on its excellent work and would certainly support any measures necessary to establish it on a statutory basis.

I ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, to consider his position and tell us how he can justify squandering in excess of €50 million of taxpayers' money on what are now obsolete voting machines, despite the many voices of reason that attempted to divert him from his opportunistic course. I understand that the ballot boxes have been sold by the OPW for €2 each in spite of having cost the State something in the region of €50 each. Is the Minister now going to buy them back and what agreement has he made in this regard?

The course of Irish democracy may have been well served by the commission as regards the forthcoming elections but questions must be asked concerning the outcome of the last general election in the constituencies of Dublin West, Dublin North and Meath, which were used as e-voting guinea pigs. In Dublin West, the total number of votes cast as recorded by the presiding officers, namely the number of postal and special votes cast on machines plus the number of votes on voting machines at polling stations, was 29,272 and the total number of votes cast on voting machines including postal and special votes and null votes as recorded on ballot modules, was 29,988, with a discrepancy between the two figures of minus 716.

In Dublin North the total number of votes cast on voting machines, as recorded by the presiding officers, namely the number of postal and special votes cast on voting machines plus the number of votes on voting machines at polling stations, was 45,236 and the total number of votes cast on voting machines including postal and special votes and null votes as recorded on ballot modules was 43,942, with a discrepancy between the figures of plus 1,294 votes, these being two different types of errors.

The findings of the pilot test on the Nedap-Powervote system were inconclusive. No connection can be established between the number of votes cast and the set of results declared. The official document with the summary reconciliation of vote accounts shows major discrepancies. The PC count application crashed during the count. The same problems occurred in both the Dublin West and Dublin North constituencies.

These figures and findings speak for themselves and we have gone far beyond the pious platitudes served up by Deputy Cullen such as: "The system is secure and reliable and can be trusted by the people." His colleague, the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, said in support that "the system would be the most accurate and therefore the most democratic the State has ever had". It would appear that Fianna Fáil's definition of democracy is unique and highly suspect. We have had the Dempsey, Fahey, Cooper-Flynn and Coughlan scandals as well as the tribunal and now the e-voting scandals.

Questions must be asked on the outcome of the last general election. They will be asked and answers must be provided. Neither I nor my colleagues in Fine Gael are against the idea of electronic voting; in fact we fully support the concept. However, the concept we support is the introduction of a system based on the democratic principles of transparency and trust.

The Minister wanted to sell us a pig in a poke. He refused to countenance the use of any other system. He reneged on the Government's commitment to cross-party consultation and support and conned the electorate as regards the cost and transparency of his suspect system. He deliberately withheld a report by Zerflow Holdings, which emphatically stated that the system was not tamper-proof. This report was in the Minister's hands before the general election and yet the system was partially used in the constituencies already mentioned.

The Minister was asked by the Opposition and by concerned citizens and groups to modify the system to provide a paper trail, so that the subsequent records could be used for spot-checks or recounts, but he refused to countenance such a proposal.

The introduction of electronic voting is an exciting advancement but it is important that it is introduced in a foolproof way that will instil the greatest possible confidence in the electorate. Greater transparency is the only way to achieve this. A total of €52 million has been wasted and this loss is to be compounded by another €50,000 which will be needed to store the machines in the Minister, Deputy Cullen's constituency. This money, totalling more than €52 million, could have been put to good use in social welfare, housing the homeless or supporting widows and widowers who were almost victims of the Minister of State's heartless Government colleagues. The shell of the Longford-Westmeath hospital in Mullingar, built 11 years ago, is not complete and €52 million has been ring-fenced for its development, the same sum the Government has squandered on the electronic voting project. We have paid many times for the squandermania of this Government. The list is endless and the mismanagement of our funds is endless and without logic.

My colleague, Deputy Allen, has already cast some doubt over the storage of the machines. He obtained the contract for their storage under the Freedom of Information Act 1997 and noted that the original figure of €25,000 was crossed out and replaced by a hand-written one of €50,000. The Minster should tell us what this means and where he intends in Waterford to store the machines. Our money is paying the bill and it would be better spent providing a Waterford regional hospital with a radiotherapy unit as my colleague, Senator Cummins, has frequently said. It is the hallmark of this Government to throw good money after bad and ignore the needs of the sick and the most vulnerable in our society.

It is essential that e-voting is not introduced in the future without cross-party agreement. If the Government had listened to the Opposition and not insisted on ploughing ahead regardless perhaps we would now be in a better position to introduce an e-voting system that had the confidence of all parties, and most important, of the electorate.

The Electoral (Amendment) Bill should consider and resolve anomalies such as that of the requirement of independent candidates to bring 15 registered voters before the returning officer on the date they submit their nomination. This requirement surely flies in the face of democracy and is a direct discrimination against non-affiliated candidates. The Minister of State should explain this anomaly and take every step possible to reverse this grossly unfair and undemocratic position.

If the Bill before us were to address such situations it might be worthy of our time. As it stands it is nothing but an attempt to railroad us into accepting a system introduced by a Minister whose blatant arrogance has led to a significant loss of taxpayers' money and who has attempted to subvert our democratic process. Whether the Minister, Deputy Cullen, does the decent thing and resigns, or is pushed, he will leave behind a legacy of spin, lies and deceit unprecedented perhaps in his own party. Before a vote was taken in the Dáil on Thursday, 8 April 2004, the Minister said:

No justified concerns have arisen in the debate. The Opposition recycles the same points raised in the past few months, which seem intended to confuse the electorate, particularly as all the parties opposite agree with electronic voting and counting. There is no point in complaining about lack of trust, as the parties opposite say. They agree with electronic voting and counting in the House and say the opposite outside. It is time to move on and embrace the future. Unfortunately, Fine Gael is rooted in the past.

The Minister of State should brood on that today and in the future. The Minister should do the honourable thing and resign because that is what people demand of him. He cannot be trusted to be a Minister after wasting over €52 million of taxpayers' money. My party and I call for his resignation on this matter.