After relentless lobbying by myself and the people of the North West, I was unable to influence Minister Harney of the justifiable case of the retention of the cancer services in Sligo General Hospital, and I have been left with no alternative but to resign the whip

Sligo North Leitrim TD Eamon Scanlon on his resignation

This is not about Jimmy Devins or about Fianna Fáil, this is about patients' lives

Sligo North Leitrim TD Jimmy Devins on his resignation

Many take the view that it is nothing other than a choreographed charade to mislead the public into thinking they are taking an action that is in the interests of the hospital and the people in the region when, in fact, it is merely about their own political survival

Sligo cancer services campaigner Jim O'Sullivan on the resignations of local Fianna Fáil TD Jimmy Devins and Eamon Scanlon

He was doing the right thing, just maybe jumped too soon. But his heart was in the right place as it always will be. We are very proud of him, always were and will be

Joe Delaney, the father of 21-year-old Simon Delaney, who drowned with Matthew Gibbons during a tragic rescue attempt in a Cavan lake

I think we were all looking for a little good news and this was the best possible news that Dunmanway could have dreamed about

Andrew Healy, club treasurer of Dunmanway Town football club, which hosted Liverpool last week

It's the stuff of dreams, to be honest. It's such a proud moment for me at the start of my managerial career

St Patrick's Athletic manager Jeff Kenna after the team's giant-killing European win over Russian side Krylya Sovetov

These cutbacks will be absolutely devastating to the prospects of a generation of young people as they attempt to navigate a course through our education system

TUI general secretary Peter MacMenamin on the announcement of thousands of teaching job cuts from September

It still hasn't hit me. But once she [Chelsea] is fine, I'm fine

Avril Boyne on the birth of her new daughter on the same day her former Thomas Cook co-workers were arrested over their sit-in redundancy dispute in Grafton Street

I've been singing and dancing all day

Dublin-based Jane Orobator whose pregnant daughter Samantha was transferred from a prison in Laos, Asia, to a British jail last week