Dáil Report: The software package for the e-voting system cost just €500,000, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern insisted, as Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny called on him to take responsibility for the overall cost of the controversial system and machines, which he put at €60 million.
During persistent heckling and sharp exchanges, following the publication of the second report of the Commission on Electronic Voting into its accuracy and secrecy, Mr Ahern insisted that the commission had given "overall validation of the €46 million investment in the electronic voting machines and the associated software", which he described as "very pleasing".
And the Opposition's criticism was the "usual outrage of an opposition that will read nothing, understand nothing and point forward nothing".
He said the commission had concluded that "the main hardware components of the system, including the voting machines, are of good quality and design". Mr Ahern added that "election software to be used with the existing machines and other software components of the system could be developed at a reasonable cost. The overall cost of the software was approximately half a million euro."
Mr Kenny said that the software system was a "dud". He agreed the hardware was of sound structure, "but it is like building a house of blocks and putting in a bad interior heating system or having a shell of a car with no engine".
The Fine Gael leader said that "the report tells us it has not been developed in accordance with any recognisable standard. It is therefore open to major counting errors."
"Do you Taoiseach accept any responsibility for spending €60 million on what this independent report says is a dud counting system that could subvert the democratic decision of the people in three, four or five-seater constituencies?" he asked.
Labour leader Pat Rabbitte, who put the cost at €52 million, said a final report from the returning officers in Dublin West and Dublin North, where the electronic system was used in the 2002 general election, indicated "a very significant and unexplained difference between the number of votes cast as recorded by the returning officer and the number of votes recorded on the ballot modules". The number of votes were "theoretically greater than the outcome in the two constituencies".
"Did Nora Owen lose her seat at all?" shouted Michael Ring (FG, Mayo).
Mr Rabbitte asked if the Taoiseach was "seriously and with a straight face standing up in the House and defending this system. Are you telling the House that the hardware works well but not the software. It's like this Government, the hard necks work well but there is no software."
The Labour leader also criticised the system being introduced and charged on the central fund. "The entire €52 million was a charge on the central fund with the purpose of escaping scrutiny by the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General."
He questioned how the Taoiseach arrived at a €500,000 cost for software. The commission did not say how much it would cost to renovate the system "if it is capable of renovation".
The report stated "that the system is rescuable, but it does not state whether rescuing it has merit".
During persistent heckles Mr Ahern hit out at Fine Gael's Meath team and Damien English (FG, Meath) who "put out literature that helped him to get into this House endorsing the equipment. He stated that it was as easy as 1,2,3."
Mr English angrily denied that he endorsed the system but said that "we explained how to use the system".