This Week They Said

Tragedy starts in Ireland at 5 p.m. on a Friday.

Tragedy starts in Ireland at 5 p.m. on a Friday.

- Mr Jack Philips, a neurosurgeon at Beaumont Hospital, on research showing the rise in road accident injuries at weekends

Get this [the Police Bill] right, and I'll go into the hardest parts of Northern Ireland and ask people to join it.

- The North's Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon, speaking in Westminster

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This is a rotten Bill, and future generations will rise up and curse the Secretary of State [for introducing it].

- Mr Peter Robinson, DUP deputy leader

This is the last big opportunity to create the conditions to enable the police to move from being effectively a counter-terrorist organisation to becoming a civic community-based service, appropriate to the conditions that are emerging.

- The Northern Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson

Robert Hamill's murder poses fundamental questions about ingrained sectarianism and incompetence within the RUC.

- Spokesperson for the campaign for a public inquiry into Mr Hamill's murder

People would call them animals. But any animals I have come in contact with are usually kind to humans.

- A neighbour of Mr Paddy Logan, the 80- year-old Co Meath man who died after raiders beat him in his home

I can accept that he may have no recollection of having made the approach. But I have to reiterate that an approach was made to me.

- Cork property developer Mr Owen O'Callaghan, insisting that the Dublin TD, Mr G.V. Wright, solicited a donation from him

If no one remembers who you were, you never existed.

- David Copeland, the London nail-bomber whose attacks against minorities and gays killed three and left scores injured

Intelligent, witty, hardworking, popular, gentle, easygoing and well respected by everyone. He was always there when we needed him.

- Ms Marie Carthy, of her brother, Mr John Carthy, who was shot dead by gardai in the so-called Abbeylara siege, renewing her call for an independent inquiry

Derek, as he has shown in the past, wasn't slow to use a bit of force. But when there are guns it doesn't matter how strong you are, it's the capacity of your weapon that counts.

- A garda speaking of Derek Dunne, the drug dealer murdered in Amsterdam last weekend

There is almost nothing anybody can say to make fun of me that has not been said already.

- President Bill Clinton, speaking during his visit to Russia

I believe that it is an indictment of our system of justice and a matter for the greatest regret when anyone suffers punishment as a result of a miscarriage of justice . . . I am very sorry indeed.

- Mr Tony Blair, apologising to the Guildford Four, who were wrongly convicted of IRA bomb attacks in England in 1974