If there is one message I want the House and the citizens of this state to be absolutely clear about, it is that Nama is not designed to be and will not be permitted to operate as a bail-out mechanism for anybody who has operated irresponsibly

Taoiseach Brian Cowen tells the Dáil that Nama is not a bail-out

Irish government bails out banks

BBC headline on the day the Nama legislation is debated in the Dáil

Boxing is my life. I have had plenty of highs in the sport and plenty of lows as well. But nothing will ever compare to the shock and sorrow of finding Darren in his flat on Monday night

Boxing promoter Frank Maloney who discovered the body of Irish boxer Darren Sutherland

It was pretty horrific looking and an incident that we don't want to see repeated

Transport minister Noel Dempsey on the Luas/bus crash in Dublin that left at least 21 people injured

...like Einstein explaining his theory of evolution

Gaffe-prone Tánaiste Mary Coughlan raises a few eyebrows when she attributes Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to Albert Einstein

If you could imagine the euphoria going to the hospital… it just wasn't to be

Declan Deasy, brother of award-winning scriptwriter Frank Deasy, who passed away while in surgery for a liver transplant

I was not aware of the cost of these arrangements and when I read the detail in the past weeks I was embarrassed that such costs were associated with some of the arrangements made on my behalf

Ceann Comhairle John O'Donoghue finally apologises after weeks of Sunday Tribune revelations about his expenses when he was Minister of Arts, Sport and Tourism

All I can do is be as straight as I can. It's my sister at the end of the day. I just had to tell the truth and that was it. It was a freak accident

Anthony Ahearne, who was questioned by gardaí in Waterford after his sister Brenda died from a poker injury

Jackass

The word used by Barack Obama to describe rapper Kanye West for his MTV awards outburst when he grabbed the microphone from singer Taylor Swift after she won an award