SUGGESTIONS ARE to be drawn up early next year for the disposal of the 7,000 unused electronic voting machines that have so far cost taxpayers €54.7 million.
Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan has asked the taskforce, which was set up to supervise the winding down of the project, to outline proposals soon for their disposal.
The machines have long been the source of controversy and ridicule among politicians and the public because of the project’s failure and the escalating cost involved.
Strongly defending their introduction, the then taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Dáil in 2007 that by not adopting the new technology “this country will move into the 21st century being a laughing stock with our stupid aul pencils”.
1) Melt ‘em
2) Sculpt ‘em into the shape of Bertie Ahern’s nose
3) Stick it on the Hill of Tara so we NEVER FORGET.
Store them in Noel Dempsey’s Gaff that will teach him
Or Bertie’s.
Bertie’s gaff is tiny, he’d never fit them in. Poor laddybuck.
Should sell them off to Envirofone or one of those, see what we get for them. Gave me €30 for an auld Nokia once, not bad at all at all.
Must have been a fancy Nokia. They offered to take my old 3110 of me for nothing.
Couldn’t we give them to the russians? it would make their election rigging a lot more hassle-free and a lot less embarrassing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQHVY1ulNXc
that’s why fianna fail wanted them after all..
Why can’t we make them work? We should have electronic voting. We’d save a fortune and the election results would be faster and more accurate than ever before. Any first year programmer could write a program to calculate quotas, eliminations and preferences.
Apparently, they can’t produce an “Audit Trial” (Like wot you get in Accounts programs).
They also use the database Microsoft Access that can be easily hacked.
I should imagine (as dim as they are) someone has looked at sticking in the appropriate software and found it not possible.
1) How about the government set up a committee to decide what would be the best thing to do with them would be.
They could staff it with FG and Labour loyalists who have not yet got their “snouts in the trough” and pay them all 120K per annum, plus all the usual trimmings.
2) Give them to Zimbabwe and get some hack at the Independent – to write a patronising article about how he are a Nation known to be really generous, when it comes to helping out Africa.
Wasn’t there talk that they couldn’t give some of them to 3rd level institutes due to security reasons?
Give them to some hackers so they can expose how insecure they are!
They look like they could be easily converted to barbecues.
Note to Edna and Michael Noonan – Use them for the possible Referendum on the Subjugation of the Country by Germany.
Have a national debate about how they should be disposed of. To remind us just how lousy government was under Fianna Fail / Greens / Progressive Democrats.
And point out that Gormless Gormley was such a waste of space that he couldn’t even make the decision to scrap them.
+1
Put them in the Tomb of the Celtic Tiger in Achill.
€54.7m into 7000 goes… these devices have cost €7814 each? We could have bought 114,000 iPads instead – 34 for every primary school in the country?
Hmm, makes you wonder how it costs €328,000 as a one off cost to move a few lorry loads of boxes.
Could we store them more cheaply in the shell of Anglo Irish HQ?
I want to buy them.
FrillyKeane@Ireland.com
Seriously.
And I can pay cash.