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.
— Enda Kenny
I don't like to see people on trolleys in hospitals; I don't like to see old people sitting in chairs for hours.
I would never accuse the Irish people of being in any way stupid.
If you were to do it again, you'd probably do some things differently. But the decision is right to have a single entity manage the water and the waste water for a country.
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.
Under no circumstances will I allow the Fianna Fail party back into government. They wrecked the economy twice.
Rather than just saying, like, 'Your economy is the be all and end all,' I go back to my three roots that I've often said about this being best country for business, the best to raise a family in, and the best to grow old in with a sense of dignity and respect.
I've often said it: that it is seen to be a place of energy, of excitement, of enthusiasm. That there's something about Ireland.
The world has changed utterly. There was a time when you couldn't marry a Protestant. There was a time when you got married that the women had to give up their job in the public service, and when they got married, they were owned by their husbands. That's all changed.
We have a very long legal system with the European Union, and we're English speaking.
You have a responsibility as a locally elected deputy, but you also have a responsibility as the head of government.
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.
The best recording is the one you bring with you in your mind.
Irish people are pragmatic. They understand that nobody is going to fix our problems but ourselves.
There will be no hard border from Dundalk to Derry in the context of it being a European border, and by that I mean customs posts every mile along the road.
My experience would say to me, never presume to have an answer to what the people are actually going to do.
I intend to serve a full term as Taoiseach.
People put dates on any kind of comment that you make.
It is the young people in whom I place my confidence because of their competence, because of their enthusiasm, because of their capacity to meet the frontiers that are changing every week.
I enjoy his concerts and OK, maybe - I can't sing, I can't dance, I can't play the guitar, but I am going to go a long way if I keep following Springsteen.
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 am perfectly clear in my mind and in my conscience in respect of freedom of religious principles and beliefs.
We have so much discrimination in this world - colour, race, creed, all of these things - and there is an issue here that the right of marriage in the civil law is not extended to same-sex couples.
Our revenue commissions are very happy and very clear that they showed no sweetheart deals and no preference for any company and never do and never have and never will.
Emigration is always a difficulty.
One of the key drivers of Ireland's future is our balance of trade surplus.
I'm a big fan of Springsteen. Obviously, his social commentary is very powerful for me. I like his album 'The Rising.' It's not a new one, but it sticks in my mind because of what it says to me.
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.
I have no interest in the trappings of power.
I just think that the older you get, the more you appreciate the responsibility of politics.
Conservation is important... water comes at a cost.
We've got enormous potential, phenomenal potential on our doorstep, which requires politics that makes that work, and that's what we try to show here in Ireland: that while there's a lot of pain, the reward at the end of this is career opportunities, prosperity, and brighter days for everybody.
I think 'austerity' is a much abused word. I prefer to call it 'fiscal discipline' or financial, 'financial competency.'
I am a big believer in Springsteen, I like his social comment; I like the commitment he puts into his work.
I think - whether it's music, literature, sport, art, whatever you want - there's nobody who can stop us if we only apply ourselves with the singular objective of being the best in the world.
If somebody says, 'I am a gay person, and I want to get married,' is their own family going to deny them that? Are our own fellow citizens going to deny them that?
Ireland cannot become the collector general for the world. We can only tax on profits generated in the country here.
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.
My job is to rectify the public finances and hand the country back to the people so they can really have a future, and that is what I will do.
Foreign investors like decisiveness; they like clarity. There isn't any confusion about Ireland's corporate tax rate: it is 12.5%. End of story.
My wife, Fionnuala, and I have been married for more than 20 years.
