The Government will produce draft legislation next week to push through changes to the electronic voting system due to be used in the local and European Parliament elections in June.
Nedap/Powervote, the company supplying the 7,000 voting machines, has warned that the changes already announced will lead to extra costs and testing.
However, Powervote UK's managing director, Mr Roy Loudon warned that Opposition demands that a paper record of each vote be kept would cost much more to achieve.
Questioned about the criticisms levelled, he told The Irish Times: "Some of them are speaking from a certain level of ignorance. They have not seen our system, or software.
"We have total confidence in our system. We are very proud of what we do. We would only have to fail once and our business would be over." The Nedap/Powervote system, he said, is fundamentally different to electronic voting systems used in the United States, which have been sharply criticised by a number of technical experts.
Facing renewed Opposition attacks in the Dáil yesterday, the Tánaiste and Progressive Democrat leader, Ms Harney said: "The Government has not yet considered the heads of the Bill, but it is being drafted as we speak. It will be published as quickly as possible. I do not have a precise date." The legislation could be passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas quickly and in good time for the elections "with goodwill from all parties" - though this seems highly unlikely.
Earlier this week, the Government said it would establish a statutory independent panel to verify the system's security and to allow people formally to abstain.
Besides copper-fastening the legal basis for electronic voting, the proposed legislation will allow for the publication of some tally information.
During a briefing yesterday, a Department of the Environment official, Mr Dave Walsh said the introduction of the system has not been rushed.
Rejecting the need for paper ballots, he went on: "The tests that we have done are the most rigorous that we have ever done. You could go on and on testing." He acknowledged that spoilt, or invalid votes cast in three pilot constituencies during the May 2002 general election were not displayed in officially published information.
However, the procedures will be changed in future to ensure that the number of votes is released to the public, along with all other count information.
The new system had successfully replicated voting results from 410 proportional representation elections held by the London-based Election Reform Society.
Meanwhile, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, who has been on EU business in Malaysia for the last week, will return to Dublin this morning.
Fine Gael TD Mr Bernard Allen the party's environment spokesman, criticised the Government for putting officials out in front to explain its own policy.
"If Martin Cullen is still away they have two Ministers of State that could have been sent out. It is very disturbing that it would put civil servants into the political arena," he said.
Using details gleaned from Fine Gael's own website, Fianna Fáil Limerick East TD, Mr Peter Power renewed his charge that Fine Gael has changed its mind for partisan political reasons.
"To quote from the Fine Gael Website, 'Electronic voting will gradually become more widespread throughout the country. One of its many benefits is that votes can be counted quicker with the use of computers'," said Mr Power.
