Analysis: the politics: The Government was determined to impose this e-voting system on June 11th, dismissing all who questioned it, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent.
Incompetence and arrogance. In politics if you suffer from one, you had better not show a trace of the other.
For if you are going to be incompetent, a bit of humility can save you from condemnation. But if you are going to be arrogant, you'd better ensure not only that you think you are always right, but that you are always right.
In its handling of the e-voting debacle, the Government and the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, have displayed a politically toxic mixture of both traits.
The key political point illustrating the Government style on this issue is that without the huge opposition fuss and press scrutiny, we would never have had this commission at all. The Government was determined to impose this e-voting system on June 11th, dismissing all who questioned it as troublemakers.
The Taoiseach's tetchy dismissal of Fine Gael's Bernard Allen last February as a man who wanted "to keep old ways, old things, the old nonsensical past" encapsulated the Government's stance. The Government's simple message was that it was right, and everybody else was wrong.
So that was the arrogance. The incompetence is laid out in the commission's report. The Government proposed to use a voting system whose computer software has not even been finalised, and there will not be enough time to test it before June 11th.
Therefore "it is impossible for anyone to certify its accuracy".
Even worse, such testing as the commission was able to organise identified an error in the count software, which could lead to "incorrect distribution of surpluses". Government sources say the error was minor and has since been corrected. The commission said more testing could uncover more errors.
Commission experts found it very easy to bypass security measures, hack into the system and manipulate the count result. Government sources said yesterday that the chance of anyone being able to sit down and hack into the system in full view of election staff was remote.
Various components had not been tested at all, the report says. The machines beep as you vote, allowing others in the vicinity determine how many preferences the voter has cast. The publication of full ballot results could theoretically facilitate the intimidation of voters.
On and on it goes. The commission has not got access to the full source code for the system, despite the recent rushed amendment to the legislation designed to indemnify the software owners against possible commercial loss.
There have been no independent "end to end" tests of the new system - tests running right through the process from the casting to the end of the counting of votes. There has been no "parallel testing" in a real election, which would allow the outcome to be compared with the traditional manual system.
"The system has not been tested as a whole or certified as being suitable for use in an Irish electoral context by an accredited testing and certification authority," the report says.
The politically damaging aspect of all this is not simply that the Government was seen to ignore objections to its plans until forced politically to listen. Nor is it that its chosen e-voting system cannot yet be certified as accurate and secure. It is the combination of both.
The episode is comparable with the citizenship referendum controversy. A referendum was needed as a matter of urgency, we were told. "Trust us. We're right", was the message. Ultimately the Government's insistence that there was a mushrooming "citizenship tourism" problem threatening to overwhelm the capital's maternity hospitals did not bear investigation.
Governments which hold power for long periods have to struggle to keep their tendency to patronise under control. Last November Martin Cullen responded to a Labour Party document which raised some of the points brought up by the commission by saying: "At all stages, all aspects of electronic voting have been tested and retested by independent experts. My Department has engaged six independent consultancies to verify electronic voting, Labour has engaged two branch secretaries." Well, let's hear it for the branch secretaries.
Other signs of arrogance have been on view this week, too. We had the "information packs" for Fianna Fáil candidates prepared by civil servants on the instructions of the Minister for Education, Noel Dempsey.
There was the invitation on Government notepaper from the Minister of State, Frank Fahey, to a Fianna Fáil fundraiser, pointing to the opportunity provided by the party fundraiser for businesspeople to bend the ear of the Taoiseach, who would be in attendance.
Martin Cullen told reporters yesterday that he didn't accept the "arrogance" charge. "Whatever the issue of the day, it requires me to give leadership and show belief to drive the whole thing forward," he said. In other words it is not arrogance, but conviction politics.
And conviction politics works. Micheál Martin was accused of arrogance and not listening by opponents of his smoking ban. He drove it forward, ignoring prophesies of disaster, and got it implemented. It is now widely popular and universally accepted.
But he, with hindsight, had right on his side. Mr Cullen did not. "Hindsight is a wonderful thing," remarked Mr Cullen yesterday. "You get tested when you get issues that didn't go the way you had planned." Indeed you do.
Within an hour of the publication of the commission's report yesterday morning, Fine Gael, Labour, the Green Party and Sinn Féin had all demanded Mr Cullen's resignation.
They won't get it, Government sources insisted. The Taoiseach had been to the fore in insisting that the e-voting system was beyond criticism, and that nothing could go wrong. Mr Cullen is not out on a limb.
When the voters take their pencils in their hands on June 11th, the Government hopes that this dreadful week of self-inflicted reversals will be forgotten.