Innovative quotes

“The Irish economy faces severe challenges over the next few years. . . [However] I am optimistic about the prospects for the country.”

– European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet

“The country is drifting on in an impossible situation with a huge gap in borrowing which is growing all the time and getting more out of control”

– Dr Garret FitzGerald on the Government’s finances

“Within the next five to 10 years, we will find that additional cancers are caused by viruses.”

– Nathan Wolfe of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative who predicts that more forms of cancer will be preventable through vaccines, although no one knows which ones

“Unlike the bank that needs to be bailed out, this problem is going to be an emergency 20 years from now. But by then it will be too late.”

– Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, marking the first anniversary on Thursday of the opening of a “doomsday” seed vault blasted from icy rock 1,000km from the North Pole on the island of Spitsbergen in the Norwegian Arctic. It has doubled its holdings to 200 million seeds in the past year, representing 400,000 varieties

“What shocks me, you see, what bothers me a bit is that, in the international arena . . . everyone agrees we need to work and act together. Then when everyone goes home, everyone has his national constraints, everyone does things a bit differently and sometimes with a little contradiction, and it is for this reason that there are some risks.”

– IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn