A government task force set up to oversee the disposal of the state's now defunct e-voting machines met just three times last year, and is only due to meet for the first time in 2010 next week, environment minister John Gormley has revealed.

Although seven storage leases for the machines have so far been terminated at no cost to the state, he also said four others have yet to be ended and could be subject to additional "buyout costs".

In a written Dáil response to questions on the matter from Fine Gael and Labour, Gormley said total expenditure on the development and roll-out of the electronic voting system to date had been €51.3m.

Gormley said he had put in place a "process" to address the issues which arose from the government's decision not to proceed with electronic voting last April. However, he said the interdepartmental task force set up only met three times last year, and was due to hold its first meeting of the year this Tuesday.

Some 4,762 e-voting machines were moved from 12 local storage locations to a central facility at Gormanston army camp in 2007, while the remainder continued to be stored at 13 local premises, Gormley said.

Following a recommendation from consultants, leases were terminated in seven cases involving three locations. "Work is ongoing on concluding the other four leases. It is expected that... termination of lease arrange­- ments will give rise to buyout costs and these will be dependent on the outcome of negotiations," he said.