The Government has begun moving thousands of electronic voting machines to a central location in Co Meath where they are to be stored indefinitely.
Last week 1,800 of the machines were moved by staff from the Office of Public Works from various locations around the country to an air hangar at Gormanston military base.
The machines are being stored in hermetically sealed containers normally used by the Army to transport equipment for overseas duty. The storage of the machines in these containers is seen as necessary as the 40-year-old hangar is not weather-proof.
A further 2,200 machines will be moved in the coming weeks and months. Some 3,000 machines will remain in various parts of the country due to lack of space at the military facility.
The move to a central location was prompted after it emerged that returning officers from around the country were paying rent of more than €690,000 a year to store the 7,000 machines at some 23 sites.
More than half of the leases on the storage facilities are for five years or more, and nullifying the leases is expected to add further cost to the electronic voting bill, which now exceeds €52 million.
Information on status of the leases or the costs of nullifying was unavailable from the Department of the Environment, which is in charge of the electronic voting system and oversaw the move of the machines to a central location.
In a statement last night the department said: "Returning officers with leases due for renewal have been advised not to enter into extended arrangements.
"Preparatory work is well advanced to establish a process for the conclusion of local lease arrangements where this is necessary."
The movement of the machines to a central location was recommended last July in a report by the Commission for Electronic Voting established in 2004 in the wake of concerns about the security and accuracy of the €50 million e-voting system bought by the Government.
Following a preliminary report the Government abandoned plans to use the machines in the 2004 local and European elections.
The Government announced two years ago that the system would not be used in the forthcoming general election.
Last July's report said the machines and system could be used subject to a series of modifications and the use of new vote counting software.
At the time of the report Minister for the Environment Dick Roche said the Government believed the system could be used subject to the implementation of the commission's recommendations.
A Cabinet sub-committee is currently considering the recommendations but as yet there is no indication as to when the machines will be used.