Limerick taxpayers are forking out for a bill of more than €50,000 to store 335 of the Government’s ill-fated electronic voting machines at a Plassey warehouse… even though the machines are not there.

The Limerick Independent can reveal that the machines, which cost €2m have been transferred to a centralised facility in Gormanstown, County Meath.

Limerick’s Returning Officer Pat Meghan admitted the machines were removed because he and a team from the Dept of Environment couldn’t work at the warehouse as “there wasn’t room to swing a cat”, and the facility was “chocabloc”.
Mr Meghan had previously entered into a lease of four years and nine months for the storage of the machines at a cost of €51,188.52, which must still be paid.

The Returning Officer for Limerick, Pat Meghan said that a lease to store the machines had been taken for four years and nine months at a cost of €51,188.52, which is being paid quarterly, however the machines are no longer in the storage facility.

Opposition political parties have rounded on returning officers who have entered into lease agreements of up to 25 years for storing the machines.

Fine Gael and Labour have warned it could cost hundred’s of thousands of euro to break lease agreements, which returning officers have signed in more than 20 locations across the country including Limerick.

Before the Office of Public Works bought the storage premises in Plassey the County Council had been storing them free of charge.

“They had stored them for us for free in Annacotty but they had to take the storage space back as they were updating the Civil Defence buildings and so we had no other premises to store the election materials,” Mr Meghan said.

One good thing that has come out of the transferral of the machines is that the insurance costs of storing them will be considerably cut from the €5,487.80 cost.

“We did insure the machines every year and that cost is now gone or has been severly cut anyway I’d say,” Mr Meghan said.

The returning officer for Limerick also said that along with the cut to the insurance costs that had been paid for the storage of the e-votiing machines, the premises in Plassey still has to store the current ballot boxes and other paraphernalia associated with the current means of counting votes at election times,” Mr Meghan said.