I agree with Senator Ray Butler. I had an experience once. I was stationary in a line of traffic on the East Link Bridge. The driver of an articulated lorry had not seen my car because it is low slung. The lorry came and crashed into the side of it. It is on video. The people in the box saw it. I reported it. The insurance company paid €1,100 for my car to be repaired. My insurance company never went after the person. Those responsible simply left it. They ignored it. It was desperate stuff.

I was interested to hear Sinn Féin raising the question of the Bank of Ireland and the way in which the bank has bowed to pressure from the Israelis to cancel the account of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign. This is absolutely appalling. Now we have the new Israeli ambassador apparently saying he cannot guarantee that the Israeli secret services will not use Irish passports in assassination attempts. I am relying on newspaper reports for this. It is horrendous and the Israeli ambassador should be called in and given a pretty severe talking to.

I propose to table a motion critical of the Bank of Ireland for doing this and hope Sinn Féin will support it. It is extraordinarily undemocratic. This bank was rescued by the taxpayers of Ireland. It is acting in this arbitrary and undemocratic manner. It is a relatively uncontroversial thing. We are not criticising the Israelis. It is up to them if they want to put pressure on - that is their right. However, for an Irish bank to accede to it is disgraceful. I call on the Leader to consider giving time, even for an hour, to pass this as a measure of protest, although I need some time to formulate the motion. By the way, I apologise in advance. I may not hear what the Leader has to say because I have to do a radio interview, but I will try to get back in time.

I agree with Senator David Norris and my colleagues in Sinn Féin on this matter. It is deplorable. It was a deplorable decision by Bank of Ireland. I am supportive of a motion being passed in the House criticising Bank of Ireland and calling on it to reverse its decision. It was wrong and there was no justification for it.

I also want to raise an interesting issue that we need to be very careful of in the coming months. It relates to Palestine. In December 2008 there was a changeover of the American President. The opportunity was used and there was extensive bombing in the Gaza area. Over 1,300 people died. We need to send a clear message to Israel that the opportunity on this occasion from 15 December to 20 January should not be used in the same way as it was last time around. The outgoing United States President was not in charge in real terms and the incoming President had not taken over. The message needs to be highlighted that it will not be a free-for-all as it was in 2008. We need to be careful of this issue. I agree with my colleagues' comments on Bank of Ireland. At one stage the account in question had only €50,000 in it. It was purely for administration. It was a wrong decision by the bank.