John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 761: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the status of the security and risk assessment of all aspects of the electronic voting system; the additional hardware and software which will be required to address the issues raised by the Commission on Electronic Voting; if he will indicate the cost of such additional hardware and software; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27553/06]

John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 762: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the measures he proposes to undertake to reduce the annual cost of storing the electronic voting machines; the cost of buying out lease agreements operational in each constituency for their storage in order that they could be moved to a central location; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27554/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 761 and 762 together.

The Commission on Electronic Voting concludes in its Second Report on the Secrecy, Accuracy and Testing of the Chosen Electronic Voting System, which was presented and published on 4 July and circulated to members of the House, that it can recommend the voting and counting equipment for use at elections in Ireland, subject to further work it has recommended, but that it is unable to recommend the election management software. The Commission makes it clear that many of its recommendations involve only relatively minor modifications or additions to the system and that it is likely that alternative election management software could be developed at a reasonable relative cost; however, the report does not provide specific costings in this regard.

In response to the report, I have indicated that I intend to propose to Government the establishment of a Cabinet Committee, which I will chair and which will consider the report and other assessment work in detail; report to the Government on the full implications of the Commission recommendations; consider the composition of a peer review group (drawn from international electoral reform bodies and the IT industry) to supervise any software redesign work; report to the Government on confidence building measures; and identify any other improvements that might be built into the system.

I welcome the Commission's view regarding local storage arrangements for the electronic voting equipment. Now that the Commission has examined the issue and reached its conclusion, work will be advanced to bring the voting machines to a central location. It would not be appropriate to comment at this stage on detailed costs that might be involved in the buy-out of leases given the commercial considerations involved.