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Politicians should trust people with the truth. Very often, we don't do that.
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Around the world, people look to Ireland as a country where it doesn't matter where you come from but where you want to go.
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I miss being able to have a drink in my local pub, which I can't do anymore, or being able to go to the shops without every second person staring at me and looking at my basket to see what I'm buying.
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I am not so naive to think that I can make every problem in the health service go away. No minister can. And never will be able to.
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It's one of my government's ambitions to secure a seat for Ireland on the U.N. Security Council so that we can play an even greater role in international affairs and try to build what we all believe in, which is a world of laws.
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I have a good social life.
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I always think that friends and family are off-bounds. I went into politics; they didn't.
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I consider myself pro-life, as I accept that the unborn is a human life with rights, and I do not support abortion on request or on demand.
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I'm not going to tell the American president how to run America, but I think it is important that when friends are speaking to each other that they are able to be very frank in the views that are exchanged, and I certainly will be doing that.
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I was appointed to Cabinet three times; on no occasion did I pitch for what position I wanted.
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What I would rather see, what I think would be the best outcome, is a very close relationship between the United Kingdom and the E.U.
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If Britain doesn't stay in the Single Market or Customs Union, we are very much in favor of a free trade agreement between the U.K. and Europe. We don't want Britain to be punished for its decision to leave, and it is not in our interests for Britain to be punished because we may be the ones who lose out as much if not more than them.
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I've realised that doctors can only help change a certain number of patients, but a Minister of Health can really change things.
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I don't know why, but I've had an interest and passion for politics.
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The idea that you could send agricultural products to Tokyo and Osaka and not pay tariffs, and you would have to pay tariffs sending them to Manchester, is quite hard to fathom in the modern world.
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My mum wanted me to be a doctor like my dad, and at 7, I really wanted to be a politician, and I managed in my mind to combine the two.
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My instinct is to say it as I see it, being a little bit edgy and showing leadership on policy issues.
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Prejudice has no hold in this Republic.
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I was with my mum in the shops, a ladies boutique or something, and I was asked what I wanted to be when I grow up. I think you're supposed to say an ambulance man or a footballer or a soldier or something like that, and I told all my mother's friends that I wanted to be Minister for Health. She was mortified, needless to say.
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Part of my mission, if I have that opportunity as leader, is to take Sinn Fein on.
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Obviously, nobody likes to read or hear about anyone having a bad experience in our hospitals.
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Enda Kenny has the full support of the Fine Gael parliamentary party.
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I don't think my election as Taoiseach actually made history - it just reflected it, reflected the enormous changes that had already occurred in our country.
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It's the middle class; it's middle Ireland, and it's a group of people who often feel that they contribute a lot to the economy and a lot to society, but maybe they don't get as much back for it as they should.