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

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

You need to talk to people, and you need to hear what it is they have to say.

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

No politician in a European sense is happy with 26 million people unemployed. Nobody can be happy with 6 to 9 million young people unemployed. You have to give them hope and confidence and a sense of inspiration that the European process is actually about people, not about bureaucracy.

For me, it is all about people having jobs, and that is why I make no apology for having focused relentlessly on employment and job creation.