Pat Gallagher (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

As I indicated on a number of occasions on previous Stages of the Bill, the question of publication of the source code will be examined later in the year, having regard to the security and secrecy of the ballot. As intended, my Department will be examining the count rules in the context of electronic voting and counting to provide that all the votes of elected candidates will be examined in the calculation and distribution of surpluses. The random nature of the distribution of surpluses will, I hope, be eliminated.

Any changes in the count rules will require fresh legislation. I have said this on numerous occasions. As I said to Senator Quinn earlier when we discussed the matter of summary and indictable offences, this will give us an opportunity to revisit the matter. I give that assurance to the House.

As to Senator Terry's query regarding what we can do, there is nothing we can do. The 1997 Act is explicit. It states that petitions to the court must be made not later than 14 days after the result of the election is declared by the returning officer.

Senator Terry referred to the general election of 2002. We can all quote selectively. I quote from the summary and conclusions of the commission's report. These are not the words of either the Minister or myself:

Testing of the counting software carried out by experts retained by the commission, using voting information from pilot tests during the previous elections, confirms that it accurately counted the votes recorded at these elections.