“Dear Mr Geier I just wanted to let you know the Irish Govt have decided to replace me at the court. Their suggestion is an Irish civil servant who was responsible for financial supervision during the period of the collapse of the Irish banks.
"I believe there will be further details in respect of this appointment which will be of interest to the parliament because of the Irish prosecutorial interest in whether or not the State condoned in [sic] the window-dressing of the financial accounts of Irish financial institutions in respect of €7 billion" – E-mail sent to a German MEP by Eoin O'Shea, Irish member of the European Court of Auditors, about Kevin Cardiff, who was nominated by the Government to succeed him.
"I shouldn't have sent that e-mail, I recognised that as soon as I had sent it . . . At that stage I may have been a little angry. I was not seeking to influence anybody, I was letting off steam." – Mr O'Shea tells an Oireachtas committee he is sorry.
"I wasn't aware I was trading on my good name, I've never had a good name at all. I'm a man who was arrested with a prostitute and the film still made loads of money. It doesn't matter." – Actor Hugh Grant testifying before the Leveson inquiry into press intrusion in Britain.
"It's very difficult to say how angry I felt that my five-year-old's school was no longer a place of complete security from journalists." – Harry Potter author JK Rowling tells the inquiry how a reporter slipped a note into her daughter's schoolbag.