Claims by the Labour Party that an electronic voting system to be introduced here has "major flaws" have been rejected by the Minister for the Environment.
Labour said the system, which will be introduced for the local and European elections next year, could lead to "vote rigging" unless its "major flaws and deficiencies" are ironed out.
Mr Cullen, who is responsible for overseeing electronic voting, said the claims were "irresponsible and unfounded" and that the system was the "most secure electronic system that exists in the world".
"At all stages, all aspects of electronic voting have been tested and re-tested by independent experts. My Department has engaged six independent consultancies to verify electronic voting, Labour has engaged two branch secretaries," he said.Labour today published a study which, it claims, highlights serious deficiencies and called on the Government to suspend the scheme until they are fixed.
In recent days, Fine Gael has also expressed concerns about the security of the computer software and hardware which will be used to record and count votes.
Electronic voting was used on a pilot basis in three constituencies in the general election of May 2002 and then in seven constituencies for the Nice referendum in October 2002. The Government has already passed the legislation to allow the system be used across the State next year.
The Labour study claims the proposed system "presents a number of significant threats to the democratic process". The authors, Mr Shane Hogan and Mr Robert Cochran, both of whom are experts in computer science and software, claim the absence of a "Voter Verifiable Audit Trail" (VVAT) means the openness and transparency of the system are in question. Both authors are also members of the Labour Party.
They have proposed changes to the system which would involve, among other things, the issue of a printed "receipt" to each voter once the electronic vote had been cast. This receipt would be placed in a separate ballot box and would be the primary source of information in the event of any legal challenge to the result of the electronic system.
Labour's spokesman on the environment and local government, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said the new system would mark "the biggest change in the country's electoral practice since Independence".
However, he claimed the Labour Party's study showed the reliability of the software was "questionable". Labour claims there is a possibility the software or hardware could be tampered with.
One of the report's authors, Mr Shane Hogan, said there was no evidence that there was "anything amiss" in the operation of the system "so far". But he said in the absence of an integrated "end-to-end" test, there was no guarantee that there hadn't been.