Leo Varadkar

“We would only need a bespoke solution for Northern Ireland if Britain leaves the Single Market.”

“I suppose I've always put the career, the job and politics, all of that first.”

“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.”

“I am a gay man. It's not a secret, but not something that everyone would necessarily know.”

“I think Sinn Fein remains the greatest threat to our democracy and our prosperity as a state.”

“I hope the unionist parties, for example, who would be keen to protect and preserve the Union would see that it's much easier to do that if the U.K. stays within the Customs Union and the Single Market, because that would take away the need for any special arrangement, or bespoke solution, for Northern Ireland.”

“I'd never be overly confident about anything.”

“Neither of my parents are involved in politics or anything like that, but my dad is political, certainly, and we would have always talked about politics and religion and money, and all those things that you're not supposed to talk about at the dinner table, we did.”

“What I do now is I train in the mornings, and people ask me why I do it. I do it for two reasons: first of all, to keep in shape, but secondly, I think training, sport, and physical activity is really good for mental health.”

“I don't see myself in politics at 51. I definitely want to do something else.”

“People need to trust what gardai say on the stand, and I can understand that perhaps in a scenario whereby lots of things are happening quickly and people are caught up in the heat of the moment, they may have a recollection that isn't exactly as things happened.”

“The Government needs to be honest and straight with people.”

“I've never had a choice of which government department I would hold. I've always been assigned a department by the Taoiseach.”

“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.”

“Fine Gael is the party of opportunity, and no matter what background you come from, we give people a chance, and it gave me a chance.”

“My opinion has always been that when it comes to deciding where specialist centres should be located, whether they are regional or national specialities, it should be done on clinical grounds.”

“It's fair to say that the policy and character of my government would be, or the government which I lead, would be very different to that of President Trump.”

“If I was to describe myself in terms of a political philosophy, I'd cast myself as a social and economic liberal, which is typically what people describe as being left-of-centre on social issues and right-of-centre on economic issues.”

“I find it scary when people talk about me as a future leader. It's like putting a big target on your back.”

“I was appointed to Cabinet three times; on no occasion did I pitch for what position I wanted.”