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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.

At the heart of the Irish economy has always been the philosophy of tax competitiveness. On the cranky left, that is very annoying; I can see that.

In Ireland here, the Revenue Commission have always been completely independent of the state since 1923, and they are quite adamant and quite clear that there was no preferential treatment and no special deals, no sweetheart deals, and that Apple paid the taxes that were due on their profits generated here in this country.

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.

You can take a man out of Ireland, but you can't take the Irishness out of the man.

We would not give up our own country - Ireland - if we were to get the whole world as an estate, and the Country of the Young along with it.

You are not speaking for yourself, but for Ireland.

The Irish move to a very low corporation tax has generated very significant revenue growth, considerably in excess of Britain's, where a slower economy has been combined with a number of stealth taxes.

I therefore declare, that if you wish any remission of the taxation which falls upon the homes of the people of England and Wales, you can only find it by reducing the great military establishments, and diminishing the money paid to fighting men in time of peace.

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.