The Electoral (Amendment) Bill, paving the way for the introduction of electronic voting, was criticised by the Opposition parties when it was introduced by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen.
However, Mr Cullen insisted that the system was "secure, reliable" and could be trusted by people.
"It has been in use for over 10 years throughout the Netherlands with a population of over 16 million people, for some years in a number of German cities, at pilots in the UK, and at two polls in this country.
"More recently, it has received a general approval from the French government for use at elections in that country, and has been actually used, and successfully so, in Brest."
The Fine Gael spokesman on the environment, Mr Bernard Allen, accused the Minister of being "like a child with a new toy" which he did not want to give up.
"Ireland is one of the most advanced countries in the world, and, therefore, we should have the best available technology, not a system without the proper backups. Irish experts are disagreeing with its introduction without a verifiable paper audit trail."
The Labour environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said he had expected the Government to step back from implementation of the system in June to allow time for a consensus on the issue. "It would appear that contrary to all administrative and political logic, the Government intends to determinedly switch this country over to electronic voting on June 11th whether the Opposition likes it or not."
Mr Paudge Connolly (Independent, Cavan-Monaghan) said he could not bring himself to have full confidence in the e-voting system as reasonable doubts about it persisted.
Mr Ciaran Cuffe (Green Party, Dún Laoghaire) repeated his party's view that it was in favour of electronic voting with the caveat that it wished to see a verifiable audit trail.
Mr Arthur Morgan (SF, Louth) accused the Government of trampling over citizens' democratic rights. "In assaulting the electoral process, the Minister has outdone himself."
