Government rubbishes claims of ripping off taxpayers
The Minister for Finance has rubbished claims that the Government has wasted millions of Irish taxpayer’s money.
Brian Cowen told reporters at the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary party meeting in Cavan that claims of financial overruns on high profile engineering projects were spurious and exaggerated.
“This idea that this government is wasting taxpayer’s money to the tune of three and 400 per cent per project is nonsense,” he said.
€50m was spent on an electronic voting system for Ireland and the initiative is now costing hundreds of thousands of euros every year for storage.
The e-voting machines have never been used after an independent commission raised questions concerning the security and accuracy of the voting system.
Responding to questions from reporters about the e-voting debacle, Brian Cowen said: “the e-voting issue, if you want to pick up on an issue where difficulties have arisen, that is still being considered. We may still have electronic voting in the future. What’s happening at the moment is that that whole thing is being tested.”
