Storing of e-voting machines cost €850,000 last year
Monday, February 04, 2008 - 10:05 AM
The cost of storing e-voting machines cost €850,000 last year, despite the fact that they have not been used, and will not be used in the upcoming referenda on the Lisbon and child protection treaties.
The initial cost of the machines was €53.1m, including the €2.6m spent on a public awareness campaigns.
They have only ever been used in a limited number of constituencies in the general election in 2002, and the second Nice Treaty held that same year.
The plan to use them for voting was shelved when security concerns were raised, and they have been stored ever since.
Returning officers in individual constituencies took the responsibility for renting space to store them, but that cost, funded by the taxpayer, has run to date into millions.
A break down of individual year’s storage is €658,000 in 2004, €696,000 in 2005, €706,000 in 2006 and €528,000 last year.
Last year’s cost was less because the Government moved approximately 4,700 of the 7,500 machines to a storage depot at Gormanston Army Camp, but that alone cost €328,000.
The remaining machines will need to be stored elsewhere, due to lack of space at the Army camp.
When the Government does eventually move them, they will have to buy out the leases that individual returning officers have entered into.
Each returning officer made a different agreement, some a monthly contract, some yearly.
Two years in Carlow-Kilkenny, 10 year leases in Kerry and Cork city and a 25-year lease in Cavan-Monaghan.
Buying out those leases will add more to the costs incurred so far, according to the Minister for the Environment John Gormley: “My department engaged consultants with valuation expertise in May 2007, following a competitive tendering process, to examine individual lease arrangements and to make recommendations as to termination of the leases, where appropriate. The consultants’ recommendations are currently under consideration in the department.”
