The Cabinet has approved the introduction of electronic voting throughout the State this summer despite widespread concern about the proposal by academics and the Opposition parties.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, strongly defended the plan this evening, saying he will appoint an independent commission to verify the accuracy and reliability of the Nedap/Powervote system.
Announcing the details a short time ago, he said: "The electronic voting and counting project has been advanced in a measured and thorough way.
"The system has undergone extensive independent testing. It has been piloted in 7 constituencies and has been favourably endorsed by the great majority of users surveyed. However, the Electronic Voting Commission now being established will provide an independent and authoritative view on this matter to ensure full public confidence in the electronic system."
"This will be an independent commission. It will be mandated to operate independently and to present its reports to the Ceann Comhairle, who will lay its reports before both Houses of the Oireachtas. I hope to announce the membership of the Commission within the next few days."
But Fine Gael party leader Mr Enda Kenny criticised the "unbridled arrogance" of the Government in forcing through the plans for the full roll-out of an electronic voting system which had not secured the confidence of the main political parties, e-security experts, academics and the public who would have to use the new machines.
Mr Kenny said: "This government has failed abysmally to secure public confidence in a new electronic voting system.
The Labour Party immediately dismissed the Government's plan to proceed with the electronic voting scheme as "an act of utter folly".
Labour, the Green Party and Fine Gael combined in a Dail motion opposing the introduction of the electronic voting system, claiming it does not have sufficient safeguards to prevent possible interference with the technology or to assure voters their ballot has been recorded correctly.
They have called for a verifiable audit trail, such as a printed slip recording the vote, to be made available as back-up in the event of a failure of the machines.
International experts and Irish academics, who have studied the system, have also criticised it as not being fully accountable.
The electronic system, which is also used in the Netherlands and Germany, has already been used 'live', but on a pilot basis, in three constituencies during the 2002 general election and in seven for the Nice referendum the same year.
It operates on the basis of proportional representation by single transferable vote (STV), the same system that has been in operation since the foundation of the State. The public has twice rejected the opportunity to abolish the PR-STV system at a referendum.
Labour's environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said this evening the Government had "arrogantly chosen to ignore the overwhelming weight of expert opinion which has warned that the system to be used is unreliable and unsafe".
"The government has also chosen to make a fundamental change to our electoral system without the consent of the opposition parties, a move virtually unprecedented in a modern democracy," he added.
Mr Gilmore said there was "no demand" from the public for "the scrapping of the old trusted and reliable system of voting" and he claimed it was clear the public did not trust the electronic system.
"In these circumstances there must be a real danger that people will chose not to use a voting system they do not trust," he said.