I would like to invite the Minister for Finance to the House for two reasons. We have all listened to roaring and bawling about the director of the Bank of Ireland, Mr. Richie Boucher. I know I am not allowed to say his name. He is the director and his name is in the public domain. With all of the other bailed out banking boys who have brought us to our knees, he appeared before the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform last week. It is hilarious that he spoke about the Bank of Ireland as a commercial enterprise. How could it possibly be a commercial enterprise, given that the people have put €4 billion into it? It is absolutely hilarious. He treated the members of the finance committee of these Houses as if they were boys at a corner. It was a masterful performance, on which I congratulate him. We should really take a leaf out of his book. I have listened to debates in the Upper and Lower Houses about bankers, insurance salesmen, directors and guys in other positions who are making fortunes from their revolting pensions.

I would like to ask the Minister for Finance a few questions when he comes here. We are reminded every day about a tycoon who is now in Mountjoy Prison for contempt of court, having put assets beyond the reach of the banks. The country's pillar banks - Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland - are putting people's lives, hopes, dreams and assets beyond their reach. That is what they are doing and we are wasting our time here by bawling at them, as it is like throwing snowballs at haystacks. What should we do? I have a solution for the Minister. If legislators - Senators and Deputies - really want to challenge the behaviour of the banks, we have to play them at their own game. How do we do this? We should follow our own money out of the banks. We should take our savings and all of our money out and put them in another bank, the credit union or the post office. We should pay our bills from another vantage point, as if we keep doing what we are doing, we will continue to be treated by the banks as if we were chattels.

Like another Senator who spoke, I would like the Minister to explain how, having worked for 30 years on a contract, my pension and tax expectations were changed overnight at the stroke of a pen. It was called the universal social charge.

This happened to every other member of our society but it did not happen to the bankers. I want the Minister for Finance to come to the House and explain the details to me. Then I will know I am sitting in the Upper House of the Parliament, not at a corner.

I could not agree more with Senators O'Donnell and Kelly. This is the most pressing and most vexed issue throughout the country. The people are looking on in awe, flabbergasted at the manner in which the bankers in this country are riding the public bareback while the Government looks on, saying its hands are tied, it is helpless and there is nothing it can do. That is not true. If there was a political will a way would be found to deal with this. Everybody knows that is the reality. I can offer a precedent. Mr. Richie Boucher might think he is working in a commercial entity. He might think he is not a socialist. However, as he has €4 billion invested in socialism, he is into socialism in a big way, whether he knows it.

I have received letters from a family who have been issued with repossession threats from Mr. Boucher's Bank of Ireland because of a lack of €5,000 in alleged arrears. It is absurd. The Minister for Finance should come before the House and explain why nothing can be done. A precedent was set in 1985 when the then Minister, Dessie O'Malley, faced down his own Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, and introduced emergency legislation to put the PMPA group of companies, including a building society and a provident society, into administration overnight. Of course it can be done. We should not be writing to the bankers, asking them to hand back a few bob. We should take them to heel. The taxpayers of this country have ownership of these banks; so has the Government but it certainly is not in control. The Government, the Cabinet, this Seanad and all public officials are a laughing stock as long as we continue to allow the bankers of this country to thumb their nose at us. Richie Boucher did everything at the finance committee last week except give it the two fingers.

I echo the Leader's sentiments about the talk to be given in the House tomorrow by Professor Christopher Pissarides. He will be the first Nobel laureate to address the House since W. B. Yeats. He is from the small island of Cyprus and has obviously acquired sufficient standing in his subject to be awarded the Nobel Prize. He will talk about youth employment and afterwards the young people of the Historical Society at TCD will award him the society's gold medal. That society was founded by Edmund Burke, considered one of the great civil rights activists by both Ireland and the United States.

Yesterday the Northern Ireland Assembly voted by 51 to 29 to extend the voting age to 16 years of age. All parties - with the exception of the DUP - supported the motion which was in the name of Sinn Féin and the Green Party. The case made was that at 18 young people have left home to go either to work or to higher education and consequently they drop out of the system for a number of years. It would be much better to have them enrolled at the age of 16. After what will undoubtedly be her success next Saturday, perhaps the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, might come to the House to discuss the issue of the voting age. She has been a very successful Minister and she might wish to extend the right to vote to 16 year olds who have long been worthy of that right, given the amount of civics knowledge they have which would make them superb voters and citizens. We should seriously consider following the example set at Stormont yesterday.

I agree with the sentiments expressed about the bankers. I have spoken in the House on a number of occasions about bringing the banks to book and have put this question. When the Minister attends the House, he may be able to explain to us what exactly a public interest director of a bank does. I am confused. I do not have a clue what these public interest directors do. They certainly are not acting in the interests of the public and seem to be acting in the interest of the bank. There is a clear distinction. Surely there is a way, either through the budget or through taxation, whereby some kind of pension levy could be introduced on pensions in excess of €150,000. Given that banks have already received billions of euro of taxpayers' money, surely there is some way to do this.

I accept that nothing can be done retrospectively. In the context of what these people will be earning in the future, however, we have a responsibility to explore the possibility of introducing a levy.

I wish to commend The Gathering, to which reference has been made. The comments made by Gabriel Byrne were regrettable. Mr. Byrne is a person for whom I have respect. It is regrettable that two or three sentences uttered during a longer interview made the headlines. That is a pity, particularly as the number of events certified as part of The Gathering has exceeded 1,000. This is a remarkable achievement and the events in question will bring people back to the country in 2013. I encourage every parish, community and sporting organisation - it should be noted that there are hundreds of golf clubs throughout the country which have overseas members - to engage with The Gathering. The latter is not designed to shake down those who will visit the country next year. Its purpose is, rather, to actively engage with people who will assist us in extricating ourselves from our current difficulties.