A selection of this weeks quotes from around the world
We have difficulty with the idea of having lethal weapons on board aircraft.
- Mervyn Granshaw, chairman of the British Air Line Pilots' Association, as it is announced that undercover officers will police flights, including those between the UK and Ireland
He promised us we would be treated like haemophiliacs or Army deafness claims.
- Vinnie Kearns of the National Taxi Drivers' Union dismisses the Taoiseach's compensation package for taxi drivers who suffered as a result of deregulation
Nationalists were jumping up and down with excitement, thinking we were on the way out. Well, they were wrong and so were all those so-called experts who predicted our demise.
- Alan Hamilton, a resident of Belfast's loyalist Shankill Road, as a Northern Ireland census reveals a continuing Protestant majority
This is a question of principle.
- Francois Perroud of Nestlé as it emerged that the foods giant is pressing the government of Ethiopia, the world's poorest country, to settle a €6 million debt arising from the nationalisation of a business by the military government in 1975
How do you give physical presence to such intangibles as "loss" and "emptiness"? And, if you can, how do you balance that against life and regeneration?
- Architect Norman Foster unveils his dramatic design, one of several that were short-listed, for a skyscraper to occupy the site of the World Trade Centre in New York
Let's not ignore but instead openly acknowledge the underlying racism and belief in aristocracy that J.R.R. Tolkien wove into the books, without even much attempt at subtlety.
- Author David Brin on Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
I've never seen such a shower of spineless individuals in my life.
- Mr Jimmy Livingstone, the father of a woman whose baby died after she was refused admission to Monaghan General Hospital, walks out of a meeting of the North Eastern Health Board when members were told the incident could not be discussed
It seems extraordinary that somebody would get a severance package as high as that reported.
- Taoiseach Bertie Ahern on the €3.8 million severance terms of former Eircom chief executive, Alfie Kane
I would be most worried that there has been slippage on the construction timetable and that the Port Tunnel Company may be progressing at the expense of safety.
- Finian McGrath, independent Dublin TD, as subsidence near the tunnel delays morning trains, causing commuter chaos
I decided to cover up Sophie's breasts using a large "By Order of the Mayor" sign.
- Ballina pharmacist Padraic Ward as an advert for Opium perfume featuring a nude image of model Sophie Dahl stirs controversy