E-voting debacle - Dead duck system must be dumped

The pronouncement by the cross-party Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the abandoned e-voting system is a “dead duck” was very apposite, but too late to prevent the wanton waste it was, and still is, even posthumously.

It is not too late, however, to cut our losses by having the €57 million useless system cease to be like an albatross around the necks of the taxpayers. Should the Government stubbornly insist on spending money to store it, it would potentially cost another €20m in the long term to do so.

That figure was arrived at by the PAC by virtue of the fact that the 7,504 useless machines are costing €700,000 a year in storage and could be there for as long as 20 years.