Madam, - Having been involved with Waterford An Taisce for nearly three decades and watched the emergence of incineration as a possible answer to the waste problem, I have attempted to gain an understanding of how the technology functions in a wider Europe.
Local debate on the subject invariably leads to the question: if the technology is as dangerous as is said in some quarters, then why is it widely used in many European countries, some of which appear to have a greater civic and environmental sense than we do?
It was with something of the same sense of confusion that I followed the e-voting debate. As I understand it, the technology was tried in several constituencies here without difficulty before the last general election and is already in use in some European countries.
It also seems that there is little political resistance to e-voting per se, but given the adversarial nature of the Irish political system, the possibility that there could be unforeseen problems with an imported technology was seized upon. That the voting commission appointed to analyse matters has given the thumbs down is not therefore surprising.
As an apolitical civil servant of nearly 40 years service and, coincidentally, an Irish Times reader over the same period, I may be naïve, but does the debate confirm my long-held view that there is an innate conservatism and aversion to change in Ireland? We seem to accept change when we think of it first, as in the plastic-bag tax or the ban on smoking in pubs, but any attempt to import an idea, to build on experiences or systems from other countries, is fraught with difficulty. Are we unable to accept the experience of other countries as valid here?
You reported on May 1st that the e-voting machines have a life span of at least 20 years. Life generally proceeds in terms of acceptable risk and I guess that both incineration and e-voting will be in use long before that time has elapsed.
In the meantime, were I a politician, I certainly would not wish to be tasked with the introduction of any government policy which might challenge political sensibilities or an insular unwillingness to change. To attempt to lead in those circumstances results in one being accused of hubris. To fail in the task, even temporarily, results in a high tide of schadenfreude, from which even The Irish Times of May 1st was not entirely immune. - Yours, etc.,
DES GRIFFIN, Sweetbriar Terrac, Lower Newtown, Waterford.