The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr Cullen, has admitted he made a mistake in his handling of the controversial move to electronic voting and he wished he could "reverse the clock to think it through".
He also conceded he had taken a "political hit" following the postponement of e-voting for the local and European elections next month. He said his error was the presumption that the only matter at issue was how the results were presented.
"I thought we still had a general consensus on this issue," he said. "I should have tested it with the House at that time. But that is hindsight and I wish I could reverse the clock to think it through." He pointed out that with hindsight he could have handled the issue differently "particularly if I had been responsible from the outset".
However quoting Churchill that "when one is going through hell, keep going", he said: "I intend to come out the other side of it." He also said he was confident that e-voting would go ahead and insisted the money invested in the technology and in the voting machines "is secure".
Mr Cullen's comments came during further heated debate about the controversial Electoral (Amendment) Bill which the Opposition sought to have abandoned because of the postponement of e-voting. However the legislation was passed by 58 votes to 42. There were also concerns that local authorities had sold their ballot boxes because of the planned moved to electronic voting.
Mr Cullen told the Dáil he agreed with the Opposition that there should be an objective of all-party agreement on how electronic voting should be introduced. "If I made one mistake it was a presumption, after the pilot phases and the public reviews, that there was one clear issue which arose. This was the presentation of the results which I immediately tried to resolve," he said.
"I stated that I would change how the results were presented and go back to the old way of doing it count by count. That was the big issue at the time, not the current issue. I thought we still had a general consensus on this issue. That was my position, but it was a mistake, or rather a presumption."
He added: "I should have tested it with the House at that time but that is hindsight and I wish I could reverse the clock to think it through. It was a reasonable presumption at the time."
The Minister stressed: "I had no grounds on contractual commitments, to sunder a whole system when the decision was made in December 2000 to roll out the system fully after the pilot stages. I could not expose the State to massive law suits."
Mr Cullen also told Labour's environment spokesman Mr Eamon Gilmore he believed approximately half the total budget put in place to promote e-voting "will be saved".
Mr Gilmore asked the Minister to confirm if county councils had sold their ballot boxes, which the Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, said Cork County Council had sold for 2 each.
Fine Gael's spokesman Mr Bernard Allen said that Fingal County Council had a budget of €30,000 for electronic voting which was now going to cost 250,000. The Minister replied: "That's my point exactly."
Mr Cullen also pointed out that "the commission has an issue with the count software but it clearly does not have an issue with the machines themselves".
Mr Gilmore replied: "I accept that but they may as well put chickens hatching in the machines unless the software can be used in them."
