Progressive Democrats Ministers have yet to make a decision on whether they will be seeking the scrapping of electronic voting machines, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has said.
Last weekend the party passed a motion at its conference calling for the abandonment of the €52 million electronic voting system in favour of traditional paper ballot.
Mr McDowell said yesterday that while personally he was not "mad keen" to introduce the electronic voting system, there was no deep division between the Progressive Democrats and Fianna Faíl over the introduction of the system.
He added: "The PDs in Government have not made a decision on this yet. What is PD party policy is not necessarily Government policy."
He said the PDs parliamentary party "will not adopt a position ahead of the presentation of the report by the Commission [ on Electronic Voting]".
The commission, which has been asked by the Government to advise on the secrecy and accuracy of the 7,500 voting machines bought by the Government, is due to report to the Ceann Comhairle of the Dáil, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, in June.
The report will then be considered by the Government, which has already said electronic voting will not be used in the next general election because of a current lack of confidence in the system.
The Government is coming under increasing pressure to abandon the current system. On Thursday the Public Accounts Committee produced a report which was highly critical of the lack of thorough research on the costs and benefits of the system before it was bought by the Government.
Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Michael Noonan described the system as "a dead duck" and said a majority of committee members, including three Fianna Fáil TDs, favoured it being abandoned.
Yesterday Mr McDowell admitted he had a personal preference for paper ballots. "I am not mad keen on it. I regard the paper system as having a lot of merit. People trust it and understand it, and watching extended counts on television is educational. These are all merits that shouldn't be forgotten."
Minister for the Environment Dick Roche promised that the Government would decide quickly on the future of electronic voting "if the report is clear-cut".
The report, which is at an advanced stage, is expected to be published by the end of June.
Speaking in Sligo yesterday Mr Roche said there would be "no logic in making a decision to scrap e-voting six to seven weeks in advance of the commission publishing its report".
The Department of the Environment has also commissioned its own report on the security of the machines from computer security consultants Rits.
This report is not yet available and is not expected to be published until after the Commission on Electronic Voting produces its report.
The department has also yet to decide on long-term storage plans for the 7,500 voting machines which are being kept in various warehouses and store rooms across the country, at a cost of nearly €700,000 a year.
Department officials have been to visit empty hangars at the disused Gormanston military airfield in Co Meath, which would require adaptation and climate control to be used for storage facilities.
The department has also been warned that there could be difficulties in cancelling the current rental contracts.
Plans by former minister for the environment Martin Cullen to roll out the system nationally for the local and European elections were suspended two years ago.