Ahern 'embarrassed' by pencils poll

Ireland is the laughing stock of Europe because voters still use pencils in elections, an "embarrassed" Taoiseach told the Dáil today.

Bertie Ahern said poll results in France and India were available within hours of ballots because e-voting technology was used.

Labour Leader Pat Rabbitte claimed e-voting machines bought by the Government were being stored at a cost of €1m a year and jokingly asked if they would be used in the imminent General Election.

Only controversial Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe would be interested in buying the hardware now, the TD added.

Mr Rabbitte claimed the €62m spent on the machines could have provided Co Galway with an excellent water service or funded care for children with autism, child psychologists or home help hours.

He added: “Ministers Noel Dempsey and Martin Cullen and the Storage Minister Dick Roche are seriously going before the country again to ask them to vote for them? What kind of a country is this?”

Mr Ahern replied that he was embarrassed to watch the French presidential elections return a result within hours of polling booths closing.

He said: “You’re dead right. I must have felt embarrassed the other night when I watched over 80 million people have the result of their highest polls ever - over 85% – and have the result out in two hours.

“And that was only a few hours behind what India did. I had to go down to Co Meath the other day and apologise to the people of Meath for being a modern technologically-advanced country and one of the biggest exporters of software, that we’re going back to the pencils”.

Mr Ahern joked that with a bit of luck, the forthcoming General Election would probably be finished within five days.

“We’ll be still counting them, and checking the bins and the buckets to see if a vote blew off the pile.

“It is an embarrassment. I do hope that in the next Dáil that we’re able to rid ourselves of the horrendous difficulties we have in trying to be a modern country.”

Mr Rabbitte replied: “It’s the first time I have ever heard the Taoiseach being embarrassed, and so well he ought to be.

He added: “It’s remarkable that Minister Martin Cullen has the neck to put his head above the parapet.

“This Government can’t make a decision about anything without employing as many consultants as you can. How many of the reports have been implemented?”

Mr Ahern countered: “If this House did not want to play politics with the issue, we would not be the laughing stock of Europe by carrying out a vote for two million people by using pencils. A ridiculous situation.”

He told the Opposition: “It was your fault because you objected to it. If you had taken a mature attitude to the e-voting system that worked particularly well in the last two elections, but politically you didn’t agree with it and got a few people in to find flaws with it.

“It’s a disgrace. Any waste of money on the voting system lies at your door.”

Mr Ahern said that public money was not wasted but went towards one million social welfare payments and in wages to Garda, the Army, 100,000 teachers and 130,000 health service workers.