I propose then that we take Items No. 1 and 44 together.
In regard to the motions on the Order Paper mentioned by Senator Harte, I agree with him. It is up to the people who have motions down which are out-of-date or which are irrelevant to have them withdrawn. I think that would eliminate many of the problems we have here. There are dates mentioned on some of these motions and I do not think it does any credit to the people who have tabled them to have them continuously on the Order Paper. I have no problem with the requests made in regard to Items 12, 13 and 14. We will have a very early debate on these three matters.
I think, in all fairness, that this House has at all times addressed itself to reports from the committees of the Oireachtas. I do not think we should be knocking this House. If there is any criticism it should be directed towards the other House, because there are many reports from Oireachtas Joint Committees which have not been reported to or have not been debated in the other House.
On the matter of Item No. 40 raised by both Senator Mooney and Senator Manning, there is no difficulty in taking that at an early date. There are difficulties this week in terms of the sitting of the House. The debate with regard to tourism figures and so forth can be included with that. This matter was mentioned by Senator Manning. There seems to be a conflict of opinion as to what are the true tourism figures, whether they are people coming back. Unfortunately when you produce statistics, there are lies and damn lies — it depends on which side you are on.
The role of the House in the Anglo-Irish parliamentary tier was raised. I mentioned at the beginning that I had not read The Irish Times on the morning it was raised by Senator Manning — there are times when I do not read The Irish Times in the morning. Having said that, I think I will leave what has happened to Senator Willie Ryan, who is a vice-president of the Interparliamentary Union. If people read the newspaper reports they will find that the British papers when dealing with the parliamentary tier mention the Dáil and the House of Commons but any comment that has been made from this side has mentioned the Oireachtas. I feel that any comments made here which might run down the role of this House are ill-advised. The inter-parliamentary tier is going to take account of the Houses of the Oireachtas here. Perhaps the people on the other side might want it to be contained within the House of Commons — but Senator Ryan has some information on that.
On Item No. 16, may I say that it will be taken by the Government Party in due course.