I'd never be overly confident about anything.
Leo Varadkar
Mum is from West Waterford, Dungarvan. She's a farmer's daughter. She's a nurse. She left home very young - I think she was 18 - and went off to train as a nurse in England. My dad is from India, just south of Mumbai. He was one of the first in his family to go to college, and he went to England in the '70s; he emigrated there.
We need to stand over our policies when negotiating a programme for government.
I find it scary when people talk about me as a future leader. It's like putting a big target on your back.
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've realised that doctors can only help change a certain number of patients, but a Minister of Health can really change things.
Fine Gael needs to be Fine Gael and needs to stand its ground. It should not sacrifice its politics for position in government.
I have expressed a very strong view that no health minister on their own can turn the health service around.
There are far too many people who get up early in the morning, and work hard, who cannot make ends meet.
I decided early on to be honest and trust people with the truth.
The Government needs to be honest and straight with people.
Around the world, people look to Ireland as a country where it doesn't matter where you come from but where you want to go.
If you want to change things, politics is the best way to do that.
It's one of my government's ambitions to secure a seat for Ireland on the U.N. Security Council so that we can play an even greater role in international affairs and try to build what we all believe in, which is a world of laws.
What I would like to build is a new centre, a wider, broader centre, which would encompass a lot of different philosophies - you know, the philosophy that I'm putting forward that is a market liberal philosophy and a socially liberal philosophy but would have room in it for a broader church than that.
It was easy for some to jump on the Brexit result and use it to make a land-grab for Northern Ireland, and it was counterproductive.
We should advocate that the North should stay in the customs union and the single market and that any customs checks should be in the ports and airports, not on land borders.
I pledge as Taoiseach to use my office, for as long as I hold it, to advance the cause of LGBT rights, to press for marriage equality across Ireland, to speak up for LGBT rights around the world where they are under attack, and to push for the implementation of the sexual health strategy here at home at a time when it is more important than ever.
In any walk of life, it's very easy to judge people's actions in retrospect.
What I see around the world are movements around people like Macron in France and Trudeau in Canada.
Whatever happens with Brexit, what I am absolutely convinced will not happen is that free movement of individuals, free movement of people, will not change, North and South without passports.
What I am interested in are the philosophies of the future. That's what drives me.
I have enormous respect for people who come from a strong family background in Fine Gael.
I don't rule out raising some taxes into the future.
My job as Taoiseach, and the job of any government, of course, is to represent all people.
In a time of global uncertainty, rising terrorism, and enormous threats to peace, it's right that we as a country should now seek to extend our diplomatic footprint overseas.
My instinct is to say it as I see it, being a little bit edgy and showing leadership on policy issues.
Part of my mission, if I have that opportunity as leader, is to take Sinn Fein on.
We always need to bear in mind that when it comes to blood transfusion, it's the person that's receiving the blood who takes the risk, not the person donating it.
I see us very much at the heart of Europe. We are founding members of the single market; we are founding members of the euro.
There should be no economic border at all between the North and South.
We really need to come behind and press for marriage equality in Northern Ireland.
I think Sinn Fein remains the greatest threat to our democracy and our prosperity as a state.
I know when my father travelled 5,000 miles to make his home in Ireland, I doubt he ever dreamed that his son would one day grow up to be its leader.
I think there should be a law that would allow the Oireachtas to take pensions away from people. That would go for corrupt politicians; it would go for public servants who failed miserably or were incompetent.
I've never had a choice of which government department I would hold. I've always been assigned a department by the Taoiseach.
I was appointed to Cabinet three times; on no occasion did I pitch for what position I wanted.
I consider myself pro-life, as I accept that the unborn is a human life with rights, and I do not support abortion on request or on demand.
I have always stuck my neck out on policy issues.
Politicians should not get involved in the detail of clinical criteria and shouldn't be arguing with professors and consultants over whether there is one standard deviation or two standard deviations.
I was with my mum in the shops, a ladies boutique or something, and I was asked what I wanted to be when I grow up. I think you're supposed to say an ambulance man or a footballer or a soldier or something like that, and I told all my mother's friends that I wanted to be Minister for Health. She was mortified, needless to say.
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.
There are a lot of people who want to retain the Eighth Amendment - I don't agree with that view myself - there are others who want to remove it, but when you ask them what that means, they aren't able to tell you.
Economic gains on their own, without a vision for society to accompany them, will result in a squandered prosperity that will ultimately be unsustainable.
People travel overseas to do things overseas that aren't legal in Ireland all the time. You know, are we going to stop people going to Las Vegas? Are we going to stop people going to Amsterdam? There are things that are illegal in Ireland, and we don't prevent people from travelling overseas to avail of them.
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.
It's the middle class; it's middle Ireland, and it's a group of people who often feel that they contribute a lot to the economy and a lot to society, but maybe they don't get as much back for it as they should.
I have a good social life.
I would love to believe that my political judgment is impeccable, but it's not.
I'll demand of myself and my own government what, in the past, I insisted of others.
