Sinn Fein Abú database response not credible – Cummins

Sinn Féin wants the public to believe the cost of their Abú database, which contains the voting details of all 3.5m Irish voters and is held in Frankfurt, was resourced by existing staff and wages and only costs the party €482 annually.

On May 20 last, Sinn Féin said they would provide the cost of their database, which is under investigation by watchdogs here and in the UK, to an Oireachtas Committee on the same day.

Almost two weeks later, an e-mail from Deputy Eoin Ó’Broin reads the costs “were internalised through the use of existing staff and wages at our head office in Dublin. The only additional costs that are incurred are the hire and maintenance of the server…€482 per annum.”

Senator John Cummins, who is on the Local Government Committee, said “nobody believes this rubbish.”

“It took 12 days to come back with this answer. Nobody is buying that. Sinn Féin are clearly trying to dodge and avoid questions here.

“This reply is simply not credible. Sinn Féin want us to believe a couple of internal staff built a secure custom-made system which is storing data belonging to 3.5million voters in this country from scratch.

“Is it more the case that money, resources or personnel from outside the State were used to build this system and they cannot account for it? The vagueness of their reply raises more questions than answers and I certainly hope that a full investigation is carried out.

“Deputy O’Broin stated at the committee that this system is only deployed for electoral purposes during electoral periods. Regardless of whether this was developed internally or externally, by law the full costs need to be accounted for in their SIPO returns. I would like the party to point out where this is shown in their returns.

“Since the outset of this controversy, Sinn Féin have attempted to brush this matter under the carpet and have continually said there is nothing to see here. Their mantra that the Abú database is simply the electoral register does not stand up to scrutiny because there is no such thing as a single centralised register in this state, there are 31 individual registers across 31 local authorities.

“Last month, Deputy Ó’Broin – who was sent to an Oireachtas Committee hearing to cover for his party’s General Secretary who refused to attend – couldn’t answer how many people had access to the Abú database nor did he know the costs of developing it. And he then produces this paltry two paragraph response.

“Fine Gael have called on Sinn Féin not to use their secret database in the upcoming Dublin Bay South bye-election as it is under investigation by our Data Protection Commission and UK authorities. Sinn Féin have refused to give that commitment and we are calling on other parties contesting the bye-election to support our call,” Senator Cummins said.

Abú was previously used in the four 2019 bye-elections and last year’s General Election by Sinn Féin. None of the country’s 3.5m voters were aware their details were held in this centralised secret database.

“What other information does Sinn Féin hold on people? Why can they not come clean on this? It is because they have something to hide from the public and Irish democracy,” Senator Cummins said.