Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I join other Senators in saying that the new format of the Order Paper is a disgraceful example of environmental waste, particularly in a country with a waste crisis of unmanageable proportions. I gather the Leader made some reference to it. There are two pages wasted on the cover. This must add up to 800 pages produced every day. I do not recall discussion of these changes by any committee – I may have missed it. This is bad environmental practice.

The Leader is very good at eliciting information. Can she then find out from the Government and inform us if there is a list in the US Defence Department which puts Ireland in the coalition of the willing? The Government accepts the view of US intelligence services that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Perhaps then, if they believe that the US can be so wrong about our involvement in the coalition, they will develop scepticism about things that are far less proven. Everyone in Ireland and in Europe knows that we are in the coalition. The Government is the only one that does not know.