I would prefer Ireland on the European train to be in the engine room rather than in the guard's van being dragged along . . . It's like Apres Match. This is Apres Nice now and we have Michael McDowell and Charlie McCreevy and Eamon O Cuiv like the three lads.
- Mr Michael Noonan, Fine Gael leader, criticising the Government for its handling of the Nice Treaty referendum
Legally, ratification of the Nice Treaty is not necessary for enlargement.
- Mr Romano Prodi, European Commission President, speaking before he began a three-day visit to Ireland
The view of all the governments is that we have to ratify Nice for enlargement.
- Mr Prodi clarifying his remarks the next day
When is this going to stop and when is the tribunal going to be told the truth by you?
- Mr Patrick Hanratty SC, for the Flood tribunal, accusing builder Mr Tom Brennan of "obstructing and hindering" the tribunal
He toyed with them, ending lives, friendship and marriages, robbing children and grandchildren of parents and grandparents as and when he wished.
- Mr Richard Lissack QC commenting on British serial killer Harold Shipman
Dublin would become an economic Mecca while the rest would be like a Third World country.
- Mr Colin Hunt, Goodbody Stock- brokers' head of research, commenting on a prediction that Dublin's population would increase by 500,000 by 2020
Ni dhearna me e [I didn't do it]
- John McDonagh speaking after a Central Criminal Court jury unaminously found him guilty of the murder and rape of 17- year-old Siobhan Hynes from Connemara
I'm not amused by these observations by letter which I consider to be entirely unwarranted and unjustified.
- Mr Justice Moriarty responding to complaints by Mr Denis O'Brien and his wife Catherine that they had been distressed by the Moriarty tribunal's treatment of them
[It's] the kind of story you have to explain to yourself twice to understand it. Three times to take it in. And 10 times to grasp the full madness of it.
- Le Monde commenting on the story of a 62-year-old French schoolteacher who gave birth to a test-tube baby after her brother (52) donated the sperm
It's like something out of Alabama in the 1960s.
- Mr Gerry Kelly of Sinn Fein, after some Catholic children were prevented from passing through loyalist areas to attend school in Belfast
Exile is the best schooling for a king, provided he can return.
- Bulgaria's former King Simeon II, who led a new group to victory in the general election, 55 years after he was exiled
He deserves everything he gets.
- Ms Sinead Smullen, speaking after her former boyfriend Derek Hickey was jailed for life for murdering the couple's 14-week- old daughter.
We are not out of this yet.
- Mr Dick Silbey, president, British Cattle Veterinary Association, talking about fresh outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease