Will the Taoiseach outline the changes that his Cabinet agreed this morning in respect of the proposals for electronic voting? Will he confirm that a verifiable paper trail will be available to voters who cast votes electronically, so that they will have proof that the machine has carried out their instructions as intended? Will the Taoiseach indicate when and how the independent panel will be established? Will he confirm that if the independent panel recommends a deferment of the proposal because of lack of voter confidence in the proposed system, that recommendation will be accepted and implemented by the Cabinet?

The Government discussed this matter this morning, and later the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, will give details of the issues raised this morning——

Outside or inside the House?

——as well as some other questions that were raised when he was absent on Government business during the past few days. Because the Minister, Deputy Cullen, was not there last week, we discussed this morning the establishment of the high level commission. We agreed its terms of reference to verify the secrecy and accuracy of the arrangements proposed for electronic voting. The commission will be mandated to operate independently and to present its reports to the Ceann Comhairle who will lay them before both Houses of the Oireachtas. The members of the commission will be appointed within the next few days. The Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is working urgently on the submission of the heads of the Bill to the Office of the Attorney General, with a view to bringing the Bill to Government for approval and publication as soon as possible.

There are many accepted electronic systems in use throughout the world without a verifiable paper trail. The Minister, Deputy Cullen, pointed out before, as I am doing again now, that there will be a formal legal trail audit if one is needed. The system can print a ballot paper for each vote cast, thus enabling a manual count to be conducted if one is required, for example, in the event of a court petition. The Minister and his departmental officials have spent a week consulting all the experts, whose advice is that we are not using the kind of equipment with which this difficulty arose in America. The systems are as different as apples and oranges. It is the experts' professional opinion that this is not required.

Is that a "Yes" or a "No"?

The Taoiseach's reply indicates the unbridled arrogance of the Government in proceeding with this proposal. The Taoiseach referred to the secrecy and accuracy of the system as proposed. He referred to the advice received by the Minister, since his return from Asia over the weekend, from all the experts. Is the Taoiseach aware that the public perception of what he is doing is of a fundamental alteration of the method of voting that has been the cornerstone of this democracy for 90 years? Fianna Fáil tried to change the proportional representation system twice previously and it was rejected by the people.

Is the Taoiseach happy that the former Minister for the Environment and Local Government spent €40 million on this scheme without the permission of the House? Is he happy the current Minister has awarded a €4.5 million contract to a former general secretary of the Fianna Fáil Party?

That is untrue.

Is the Taoiseach happy, for instance, that the Ombudsman has declared serious concerns about the validity of this system? Is he happy that the media in general have said it is not sound, it has not been tested properly and it does not have voter confidence?

The Deputy's minute is concluded.

Is the Taoiseach happy that technological experts in the information security business have said the system is not tamper-proof and does not stand up to mission critical testing in a complex area? Is he happy that a majority of public opinion throughout the country, represented by the Opposition parties, has no confidence in this system?

The Deputy's time is concluded.

Does the Taoiseach accept, in view of the genuine concerns of thousands of people and experts outside the political arena, that the Government and himself should be big enough to back off on this proposal until such time as they have a system to which we can all sign up and in which the voter, the cornerstone of our democracy, can have faith and confidence and they should not be going on with the charade he is trying to ram through over the next 15 weeks?

As the Deputy will be aware, the issue was raised correctly about Members going over time on Leaders' Questions in the House.

The Taoiseach went on for 20 minutes one day on Question Time and I will not take that from you, Sir.

The Deputy will take the Standing Order.

The Chair should apply them evenly.

The Chair should implement them for the Taoiseach as well.

If the Taoiseach answered the question, there would be no problem.

If Deputy Kenny takes two minutes to ask a series of questions, the Chair is obliged to confine the Taoiseach to one minute to answer.

I cannot see both clocks because of the reflection of the lights. I expect the Ceann Comhairle to put stopwatches in here for us so that we can abide by his regulations if that is what he wants.

Some Members use stopwatches to make sure they stay within time.

All of us do not have one.

The Ceann Comhairle should give one to the Taoiseach.

Would the Opposition object to electronic watches?

It is important that every leader treats the House in the same way.

We agree with that.

I ask leaders to abide by the Standing Order and they will all be treated in the same way.

I will hold the Ceann Comhairle to that.

The Ceann Comhairle has proved the point.

I do not agree with Deputy Kenny so I will not go through every point he made. I do not agree there is a lack of public confidence in this system.

There is.

People have organised several elections. We had this during the second Nice referendum campaign——

That was a straight vote.

——and during the last general election. There was no complaint or objection from the people involved in this.

There was no way of checking.

The details of the project have been in the public domain since 1999. Electronic voting was referred to in two Acts, the Local Elections (Disclosure of Donations and Expenditure) Act 1999 and the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2001. A demonstration of the system was given to the officials of political parties prior to the 2002 parliamentary elections. There were no major objections to the voting system as it was rolled out in the 2002 general election.

That is completely untrue.

The Government has been proved wrong on this.

PTB, the German institute which undertook a code to review 25,000 lines of embedded software in the voting system, examined this system. It critically addressed the absolute correspondence between pressing a preference button and registering the appropriate preference in the ballot——

Can it be fixed?

Does the Taoiseach understand what he is saying?

If the Deputy stopped interrupting, he would understand. I know what is his agenda. He is just opposed to this.

I am not opposed to this.

The Deputy is opposed to this totally and completely. He is doing his best to turn people off electronic voting.

I want honesty.

The Deputy wants to keep old ways, old things, the old nonsensical past.

We want a modern Ireland.

This is Leaders' Questions and if Deputy Allen does not resume his seat, he knows the remedy.

Deputy Allen wants the Cork South-Central count to go on for five days after the general election and go the backwards way, but we will not stick to that.

Does the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform trust the Taoiseach?

How were the details of this system known in 1999? The Bill was not introduced until 2001. With whom was it discussed in 1999?

That was a computer error.

The contract was committed to Nedap in December 2000 before the Bill was even published. The deal was already done.

The machines were bought before the Bill was signed.

The Taoiseach decided earlier to proceed with electronic voting, even though the legislation has not been published, so he is repeating it. Are we to take it that the members of the independent panel will be chosen by the Fianna Fáil director of elections? Is that what we are to understand? When will they be put in place? Will the Opposition parties be consulted? Will we have time to respond to their report? When will the terms of reference be made available to the House, as distinct from outside? Is it not the case that the Taoiseach has trampled on the rights of Parliament and ignored the views of his own backbenchers? He has contempt for public opinion and he has repudiated the academic experts who have made clear their concerns about security and verifiability.

The Progressive Democrats went along with that.

The Taoiseach has ignored the views of the Ombudsman, who is on public record. What is the hurry with all this? The previous Minister for the Environment and Local Government spent the money without sanction — €40 million. What is the hurry? Can we not have time to work out by consensus of all parties in the House, including the Progressive Democrats, who share the disquiet in the House? Why proceed in this fashion? The Progressive Democrats told us a second party in Government was needed, but it is beginning to look as if there is only one party in government.

They are like Siamese twins.

Let the Progressive Democrats assert themselves. There are precedents for Napoleonic figures returning from the far east and biting the dust when they came back. The day will come when the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government will also back off on this.

I did not come back from the far east and bite the dust.

The first question Deputy Rabbitte asked was when the system was mentioned in 1999. It was referred to in 1999 and the issue of electronic voting was in the public domain that year. Electronic voting was referred to in two Acts, the Local Elections (Disclosure of Donations and Expenditure) Act 1999 and the Electoral (Amendment) Act 2001. The commission will be in place. Its terms of reference are to verify the secrecy and accuracy of the arrangements proposed for electronic voting. It will be set up on a non-statutory basis within a few days. The legislation is being prepared.

There are different systems and people continue to compare systems that are not alike. I cannot stop them doing that. However, the system resulted from a major international procurement process. The tender was won by a company that is internationally renowned for having an accurate system for over 30 years. It is a highly credible company. The system has been examined by at least six different bodies, including the German institute, PTB; the Dutch firm, TNO; KEMA, the Dutch firm involved in certification safety; the Electoral Reform System, which ran the functional test to verify the system; an Irish software company, which undertook the architectural and code review; and Zerflow Information Security.

The system went through a testing period. It was then rolled out in some constituencies almost two years ago during the general election and then used in further constituencies. It went through the entire process. Complaints were made in the House and I responded by saying we would have an independent examination or group to deal with this. People of the highest repute will be appointed to the commission.

Who will appoint them?

The Government will appoint the commission.

That will not be independent. That is nonsensical.

I think that answers all the questions.

The Taoiseach is being facetious. It does not. What it confirms is that the Fianna Fáil director of elections will appoint the independent panel. That is what we have established so far. The Fianna Fáil director of elections will appoint the independent panel and draw up its terms of reference. The independent panel, which was committed to be in place before enactment and allowed the facility of judging the secrecy and security of the voting system, will publish a report to which we may then react. Given the schedule for legislation, how does the Taoiseach propose that all that can be processed between now and the local and European elections?

What is the hurry? The Taoiseach has made much of conceding the facility for spoiling a vote and a limited tally, both of which are incidental to the concern on this side of the House which is shared by the public, namely, voter verifiability.

The system is verifiable. Deputy Rabbitte should take the time to read the report.

The Minister should allow Deputy Rabbitte to continue.

Voter verifiability is the issue and not incidental matters about tallies and spoiling votes. Is it the Government's intention to reconfigure the machines or will provision merely be made on the ballot paper for abstentions? Which of these two will it be?

The Deputy's time is concluded.

This is an example of the kind of question to which we have not received answers.

I am sure it is but the Deputy's time is concluded.

What is the hurry?

A system first discussed five years ago was tested——

It was not.

This is Leaders' Questions.

It was not discussed five years ago.

We can easily organise for everyone to disrupt everyone else. I try to avoid that by asking my colleagues not to do so. However, if we want to do that, we can do so. We would then have chaos. That would be easy to organise.

The matter was raised in 1999 and the tests were done prior to the general election of 2002. Electronic voting was used in that election and Deputy Rabbitte's party had no objection to it.

We have no objection now, in principle. That is not the issue.

Allow the Taoiseach to speak without interruption, please.

It is the same system. In that general election and the Nice treaty referendum, 400,000 people exercised their franchise using this system. It was chosen after an international tendering process.

How do we know?

The Deputy knows because the details are available.

Was it ever verified?

Allow the Taoiseach to speak without interruption.

The six international groups all had enormous commercial credibility. One of them had more than 30 years' experience. We were all satisfied with the system. We are prepared to have an expert panel examine the system. Voters will see their ballot paper and cast their vote on the screen. One can go into the system. As a modern society——

The Taoiseach should not give us that old rubbish.

——do we really want to be wondering, five or six days after an election, what the result of the 59th count will be? Is that the sort of society we want to have?

Allow the Taoiseach to conclude.

We are the largest software experts in the world but we want to be "doddling" around with paper. The Opposition must come into the 21st century.

We are being presented with a fait accompli.