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

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

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

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

You're not going to be able to deliver jobs locally unless you sort out the nation's problems, and that's why the big and difficult decisions about Ireland's economy have been so crucial and so difficult for people to have to accept and have to deal with, but the reality is the people gave this government an unprecedented mandate.

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.