This Week They Said

I never got it in the Burlington or anywhere else.

I never got it in the Burlington or anywhere else.

- The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, denying allegations he ever received £50,000 from the Cork property developer Mr Owen O'Callaghan

I will be telling the tribunal in the most emphatic way that I never instructed or authorised anyone on my behalf to pay monies to any politician for his or her vote.

- Mr O'Callaghan

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I just, I just want to assure everyone, so that my political colleagues and workers can take it easy, the next election, it'll, it'll be in the summer, all right, but in the summer of two years' time.

- Mr Ahern

Today is a day of truce - the only one in 41 years. Tomorrow the struggle continues.

- Dr Fidel Castro on US-Cuba relations following the reunification of Elian Gonzalez with his father

Ours is a nation of laws, not guns. Custody disputes are resolved in the calm of the courtroom, not in the terror of a middle-of-the-night raid.

- Republican presidential candidate, Governor George Bush, of the raid

The IRA wants to see a permanent peace in our country. Over the past five years we have ceased all military operations to facilitate the search for a durable peace . . . The actions of unionists and the unilateral decision by Peter Mandelson to collapse the institutions have, however, created a climate of bad faith.

- Provisional IRA statement

The stroke of a colonial pen has overturned the democratic wishes of the electorate North and South and has ripped apart an international agreement.

- Mr Gerry Kelly talking about the suspension of the Executive

Direct rule on a long-term basis is not an acceptable substitute for the Good Friday agreement and the will of the people.

- The Taoiseach

Let them rust in peace.

- Caoimhghin O Caolain, Sinn Fein, on the IRA's weapons

From day to day we don't know whether Mugabe is going to get out of the wrong side of the bed and order more killings.

- Stephen Murray, A Zimbabwe farmer forced to flee from his home

I just don't recognise today the Robert Mugabe of 1980 or even two years ago. It is as if some demon has seized him.

- Lady Soames, whose husband, Lord Soames, oversaw the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe

Unanswered questions will continue to feed public disquiet surrounding Mr Carthy's killing.

- Mr Jim Higgins, Fine Gael, calling for the findings of an internal Garda inquiry into John Carthy's killing to be published

Will the killer be caught? On the scale of 100, the chances are more than 50. Do I think he'll be successfully prosecuted for murder? I'd put that at a good 50/50.

- Crimewatch presenter, Nick Ross, on the killer of his former colleague Jill Dando

It is a cancer in society, which if not checked and cured, will send out its deadly tendrils to infect much of the body politic.

- The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Walton Empey, on racism, in his Easter address

I haven't lost my sense of humour or my tolerance of dreadful behaviour.

- Germaine Greer, after being allegedly assaulted in her home