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

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

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.

You see, in government, people give you a mandate, and you've got to fulfil that. Ours is very clear. Fix our public finances and get our country working.

Sometimes in politics, you get a wallop in the electoral process.

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