I think I bring a perspective that local communities are what make this country great, and they are the laboratories of democracy.

You don't have to be Latino to speak powerfully about how important it is to have a police department that cares for our immigrant communities.

If you can speak Spanish, then you can have a stronger connection with the residents of Los Angeles.

I want to turn momentum on traffic. I want to make in a dent in homelessness on the way to eradicating it on our streets. But there's always something else to do tomorrow. And you have to be at peace knowing you're not going to finish it all.

If you want to cut crime, if you want to end homelessness, you have to deal with sexual violence, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.

Homelessness is like public education - something that for far too long we haven't put the resources or love or attention to.

When it comes to public safety, I listen to police chiefs and cops, not to a cable-news station.

If I hear that Quito, Ecuador, is doing something to have a whole area of town that's zero emissions, and we're thinking about that in Los Angeles' downtown, I'm like, 'I better catch up.'

The lion's share of the damage to the Irish economy was the fault of domestic, economic, and financial mismanagement.

It is about time county councils got back into the business of providing houses.

The U.K. and Ireland are like-minded on E.U. matters, and the process of working together in Brussels has built an immense store of knowledge, personal relationships, and trust between our governments.

The E.U. needs renewal, and we need a strong U.K. at the table to help to drive the reform agenda that can help the union regain competitiveness and growth.

My genuine belief is that if we can get through the eurozone crisis from a political point of view, we've got a lot of engines that can drive our economy, that will restore confidence and get us moving on.

Public confidence in, and support for, the euro - and, indeed, the European Union - will ultimately be determined by how well we deliver on growth and jobs rather than on institutional wrangling and complex legal or technical negotiations.

We must ensure that more binding, durable, and enforceable fiscal rules go hand-in-hand with funding certainty for countries pursuing sound and sustainable economic policies. We need to keep pushing forward towards a comprehensive solution to the challenges of the eurozone.

We need to work together towards a mutually beneficial solution for Ireland, the U.K., and for Europe.

As leader of the Fine Gael Party, I will also use our position in the European People's Party to clearly state our views with our European political partners.

Our priority will be to look after the interests of our own country and its citizens.

Down the country, people in rural areas are struggling to get a speed of even 1 MB, not much better than the old dial-up system we used to have when the system was in relative infancy.

For too long, Ireland has neglected its children.

Cloyne's revelations are heart-breaking.

The revelations of the Cloyne report have brought the government, Irish Catholics, and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture.

People understand that you have to do difficult things to sort out our own public finances.

People tell me their own stories about how they have come through great difficulty.