I will be a President for all the people, whether they voted for me or not, whether they are young or old and particularly for the Irish abroad. I'm looking forward to it and I think it will be exciting and wonderful.

The mandate I have received and for which I will speak with heart and head to implement over the next seven years had its four pillars - an inclusive citizenship, equality and participation and respect in a creative society creating an excellence in everything we Irish do.

I think even the poorest people in the great country that is the United States should be entitled to basic health care.

I will be a President for all the people, whether they voted for me or not, whether they are young or old and particularly for the Irish abroad. I'm looking forward to it and I think it will be exciting and wonderful.

I love our shared island, our shared Ireland and its core decency. I love it for its imagination and its celebration of the endless possibilities for our people.

Now it is time to turn to an older wisdom that, while respecting material comfort and security as a basic right of all, also recognises that many of the most valuable things in life cannot be measured.

We need to discuss the basis of a new form of trust built on a meaningful form of citizenship appropriate for a republic.