A commission set up to inquire into electronic voting will have the power to recommend its postponement or abandonment when it produces its first report, even though the system has cost €40 million to date, the Government has insisted.
The Cabinet decided at its weekly meeting that the new body, headed by a High Court judge, Mr Justice Matthew P. Smith, will be able to hire as much technical expertise as it needs before giving a verdict before May 1st on the security and accuracy of the voting machines.
The other members of the Electronic Voting and Counting Commission are Mr Kieran Coughlan, clerk of the Dáil; Ms Deirdre Lane, clerk of the Seanad; Mr Danny O'Hare, the former head of Dublin City University; and Mr Brian Sweeney, chairman and former chief executive of Siemens Ireland.
The Ombudsman, Ms Emily O'Reilly, and the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, who are usually chosen to join such inquiries, were both excluded, although the Government insists this had nothing to do with queries both have raised about electronic voting.
"In carrying out its work it will be open to the commission to review the tests already undertaken to validate the electronic voting and counting system, and to have further tests undertaken," the Government said after yesterday's Cabinet meeting.
Although the Department of the Environment continued to express confidence in the system, which is scheduled to be used throughout the State on June 11th, a spokesman said: "If they tell us at the end of the day that it cannot go ahead, if they raise serious concerns, then the Government could not proceed."
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, who did not attend the Cabinet meeting because he was in Brussels, nevertheless contacted the leaders of the Opposition parties yesterday before the membership of the commission was announced.
However, the Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said the Government's decision not to consult the Opposition about the make-up of the commission was quite unacceptable, and would simply increase public disquiet about the use of a system that was patently unreliable and unsafe.
Facing the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, in the Dáil, Mr Rabbitte said the Government had "dragooned" the clerks of the Dáil and Seanad, who were both senior civil servants, into becoming involved in "a partisan situation".
Meanwhile, the Fine Gael TD, Mr Bernard Allen, said the commission was not independent and would suffer from "vague" terms of reference. It had just weeks to adjudicate upon the system.
He said the commission should specifically investigate the Opposition's demand for paper ballots to be kept, and criticisms about the refusal of the voting machines' manufacturers to publish the computer codes.
The Government should even at this late stage appoint a truly independent electoral commission with responsibility to plan and manage the introduction of electronic voting in consultation with the opposition.
