We have a problem. It is a serious problem. Unemployment will go up in the short term, that's for sure. - Taoiseach Brian Cowen warns that standards of living will decline in the year to come
A difficult decision, but . . . a necessary decision. - John Hurley, governor of the Central Bank, on the Government decision to recapitalise the banks
The bailout of Anglo Irish follows a compelling political logic. Anglo Irish funds developers, and developers fund Fianna Fáil. By any other criterion, a bailout of Anglo Irish is senseless. - Morgan Kelly, UCD professor of economics, on the recapitalisation of Anglo Irish Bank
If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would . . . oppose warmongers, occupiers, terrorists and bullies the world over. - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, delivers an alternative to the Queen's speech on British television
Harold was a political figure, a polemicist, and carried on fierce battles against American foreign policy and often British foreign policy, but in private he was the most incredibly loyal of friends and generous of human beings. - Harold Pinter's biographer Michael Billington pays tribute to the playwright, who passed away this week
People should take responsibility for the amount of alcohol they drink . . . This is the 17th case this year where a person who was otherwise healthy dies from drinking too much, and most of these cases involve young people. - Dublin county coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty speaking at an inquest into the death of a 35-year-old man who died at a drinking party last August
What keeps the pope awake at night is the idea that human beings might be able to seek out their own sexual identity to have a happy life. - Franco Grillini, of Italian association Gaynet, after Pope Benedict XVI made what are being interpreted as anti-gay comments in a pre-Christmas address
He fought to keep the gun out of Irish politics . . . he created the intellectual space in what was a . . . cesspool of lazy sectarian understandings. - Michael McDowell, a Northern Ireland-born, US-based foreign affairs consultant, on the late Conor Cruise O'Brien