An endless war against terrorism can tend to inflate the terrorists, because being at war is attractive to some angry, unemployed, disaffected youth.

I want to see a UN that enables a gathering of energies in which business plays its proper role.

Ireland is not in a good place at the moment. We have our own humiliation of losing our economic sovereignty, and we're now regaining it slowly and painfully.

The whole human rights structure is based on the accountability of governments.

If you live in a global world and you want to champion liberty in it, then you have you got to sign up to that global world.

Membership in the European Community, now the European Union, has helped Ireland to take its place as a European country with all the member states, including Britain. It has therefore helped the maturing of a good bilateral relationship with Britain, lifting part of the burden of history.

The MDGs have been useful in moving human rights and development discourse together and in highlighting the need for greater accountability at all levels.