Madam, - The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, is damning regarding the electronic voting fiasco (The Irish Times, September 29th).
Mr Purcell states that the process "should have been subject to more rigorous appraisal" than was evidently the case. Back in February, the Minister for the Environment, Martin Cullen, (backed up by the Taoiseach) stridently claimed that the system "had been proven to work" before the report of the Commission on Electronic Voting was published in April and gave the lie to this assertion.
As a result, some €50 million of taxpayers' money was frittered needlessly away. Yet, as they say in these cases, Mr Cullen "moved on" from this outrageous cock-up and the €50 million was simply brushed neatly under the carpet.
I can't conceive of any other job where the person responsible would retain his or her position. Yet the Taoiseach saw fit actually to promote Mr Cullen to the Transport portfolio. So much for the guff about "new beginnings" and "fresh starts" we kept hearing about.
Quite frankly, this is beyond belief. Roll on election day, 2007 - if they even last that long. - Yours, etc.,
DAVID MARLBOROUGH, Kenilworth Park, Dublin 6W.