Government is finally seeing sense, thanks to Gormley

“THE voting machines worked quite well in the last election — they worked excellently. Fine Gael is afraid of them and wants to return to paper and pencils. Even though we are a country of technology, Fine Gael would rather go back to the old way — a haon, a dó, a trí and use the pencils.”

It was March 2007, and Bertie Ahern was doing his best to defend the Government purchase of electronic voting machines and the continuing outlay on them.

But the guffaws of laughter from the opposition benches must have told him the game was up.