It is proposed to take item No. 1 today.
Order of Business.
On the Order of Business, will the Leader of the House give sympathetic consideration to taking item No. 39 on the Order Paper next week, possibly next Thursday? Also I want to pay tribute to the crew of Howth lifeboat whose speedy action last night averted possible loss of life.
There is an item on the Order Paper which has been there now for quite a long time. It is item No. 6 dealing with abolition of the death penalty. I want to draw the attention of the Leader of the House to it and ask him whether in considering ordering that Bill for a day in the future he will recognise the decisions made in different countries in order to avoid the death penalty and also recognise that in Ireland quite a large body of people now find it totally unacceptable that we still have the death penalty on the Statute Book. It is a matter of tidying up the Statute Book really. It is uncivilised to think of taking life for any reason and we have said this often enough in response to tragedies in other places. I ask the Leader of the House to take that Bill as soon as possible.
In the taking of motions next week and as we are dealing with Bord Telecom today it might be quite important to look at the report on the ESB, which is item No. 10 on the Order Paper. I ask the Leader of the House to consider ordering that at an early date as it is quite important that the reports of the Committee on State-Sponsored Bodies should be debated at some length.
I want to raise item No. 9 on this morning's Order Paper, the Register of Members of the Oireachtas Interests Bill, 1989, First Stage. When I asked the Leader of the House to allow me to ask for the permission of the House to get this Bill printed, he invited me to discuss the matter with him.
Senator, I——
I just want to ask a question about the Order of Business. I think it would be fairer to let me ask the question, with all respect. I ask the Leader of the House to confirm fo me on the record our discussions on the matter and those between himself and the Government Whip, on whether he would allow me next Wednesday to ask for the permission of the House to publish that Bill. I do not ask any more of him than that he should actually allow me to ask for the House's permission. I would like him to confirm that that is what we discussed and agreed.
I do not think anyone will stop Senator Ryan from asking for permission to have item No. 9 placed on the Order of Business——
That is not what I asked the Leader of the House to do.
——if he asks next week. There is no problem with that. As regards item No. 10, there is no problem about having an early debate on that. It was my intention next week to take item No. 4. Without putting them into an order of priority, items Nos. 39, 10, 3 and 4 will be taken within the next couple of weeks. All I will do is give a guarantee that we will take these reports over the next couple of weeks. As regards item No. 39, we will try to have an early debate on it.
Order of Business agreed to.