For years, Ireland used to have a philosophy of 'Get them in here to invest and develop in Ireland, and this will sort out our problems.' It is good in the sense of building a trade surplus, but we also want to develop what it is that we offer ourselves and that Irish companies export abroad.

Populist promises to reverse every tough decision are nothing but empty rhetoric, irresponsible leadership, and bad politics. They are not the solution to Ireland's problems.

Respectability in this country was a bad word because people did things who were in respected professions that let down the entire nation, and we're washing away their sins yet.

I don't take myself too seriously, but I take the job very seriously, and I expect people to do the job that they're given because this is about all our people, young and old, and it's an enormous responsibility.

In Syria, a progressive foreign policy would have shown military restraint while pumping up our ability to gain political leverage over Syria's benefactors and providing humanitarian funding to make sure that anybody that wanted to leave Syria could.

All of the people who work in the Russian government and Russian presidential administration, in this way or another, work for Vladimir Putin.

We need to end the government monopoly in education by transferring power from bureaucracies and unions to families. The era of defining public education as allegiance to centralized school districts must end.

The government cannot overcome bad parenting. What our leaders can do is publicly condemn irresponsible parental behavior in vivid terms.