Well, you could read the perlfaq question How can I make my hash remember the order I put elements into it ?

Or, if your case is as simple as you've laid out, you could avoid the hash altogether:

# arrays preserve order. => will be treated as a comma
@permissions = ('ATM_NO' => 'No access to ATMs',
                'ATM_R' => 'Read ATMs',
                'ATM_W' => 'Write ATMs',
                'ATM_M' => 'Modify ATMs',
                'ATM_D' => 'Delete ATMs',
                'ETM_NO' => 'No access to ETMs',
                'ETM_R' => 'Read ETMs',
                'ETM_W' => 'Write ETMs',
                'ETM_M' => 'Modify ETMs',
                'ETM_D' => 'Delete ETMs' );

my $index = 0;
while ($index < $#permissions-1) {
    ($perm_name, $perm_desc) = @permissions[$index,$index+1];
    print "\nINSERT INTO permissions SET name='$perm_name', descriptio
+n='$perm_desc'\n";
    $index += 2;
}
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Updates:

• 2006-02-15 : Thanks to rinceWind, salva, and wfsp for pointing out that I neglected to increment $index. *blush* It's fixed now.