I would never accuse the Irish people of being in any way stupid.

My experience would say to me, never presume to have an answer to what the people are actually going to do.

Irish people are pragmatic. They understand that nobody is going to fix our problems but ourselves.

To me, the real opinion polls are the tangible facts: the growing creation of jobs, the number of planning permissions, the number of commercial vans being sold - the signs that the Irish people are regaining confidence.

The revelations of the Cloyne report have brought the government, Irish Catholics, and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture.

The lion's share of the damage to the Irish economy was the fault of domestic, economic, and financial mismanagement.