Report recommends cameras costing €50k to safeguard Dáil votes

New cameras at the cost of €50,000 in the parliament would help safeguard the Dail voting system, a report for Leinster House has concluded.

The recommendations follow the vote-gate controversy last year in which Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins voted six times for colleague Timmy Dooley while the latter was outside the Dáil chamber.

On another occasion, then-party Brexit spokeswoman Lisa Chambers voted for Fianna Fáil deputy leader Dara Calleary, which she said was a mistake.

A review of the voting system has been carried out by Prof David Farrell, the head of the school of politics at UCD, and will be discussed by party representatives this evening.

It recommends a number of reforms to prevent deputies voting on behalf of others either by accident or on purpose in future. These include a two-hand voting procedure, display systems for voting, special card readers to verify identities or extra cameras for the Dáil chamber and Leinster House.

Assessing the options, Prof Farrell concludes:

“Of the various options available to prevent Deputies intentionally, or otherwise, voting on behalf of another Deputy, the installation of additional cameras to record the act of voting would seem the best on grounds of effectiveness and cost,”

An estimate provided in the report suggests that the installation will cost between €45,000 and €50,000. However, the Oireachtas have provided alternative options which could be double this amount.

The high-profile Committee on Procedure and Privilege (CPP) are set to discuss the report after 6pm this evening and then expected to make their own recommendations.

Other conclusions in the report suggest a deputy's name should be on a Dáil seat, possibly with a sticker.

The use of biometrics or voting display maps are also explored in the review, but these are far more costly with the former potentially costing up to €600,000.