Six things we learned from the first leaders' debate as parties trade blows
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Ten leaders kitted out at RTÉ’s television studios for the first major debate of the general election campaign, with blows being traded on policy and on party records.
Here are just a few of the standout moments from the debate:
Everyone broadly appears to be keeping their options open, while Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael both continue to rule out any coalition with Sinn Féin.
However, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín was straight out, criticising parties for not giving straight answers for coalition deals.
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Mr Tóibín said that his party would not go in with Fine Gael or the Green Party. He hits out at Mr Harris in particular, saying that if he was head of a private company he would be fired, citing waste of money within government.
Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins kept his council on who he’d like to see as the next Taoiseach out of Simon Harris, Micheál Martin and Mary Lou McDonald.
People Before Profit leader Richard Boyd Barrett says that his party wants to see a government without either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, calling for a “left government for the first time in the history of this State”.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were much more in sync during this debate, compared to their previous sniping over the last week.
One Fine Gael source even went as far as to describe the two leaders as the “sensible adults in the room”.
Perhaps we have now reached the end of the phoney war, as it has been described over the last week.
However, it may play to Sinn Féin’s advantage, with the two men pictured side-by-side lobbing criticism at Ms McDonald. It could bolster the main opposition’s argument to end 100 years of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in power.
One of the more bizarre moments of the night came from Simon Harris, who rejected assertions from Katie Hannon that it was he who signed off on the National Children’s Hospital.
He instead set out that he was the Minister for Health at the time, with the contract instead being signed by the overall government.
“You personally signed the contract that brought us the Children’s Hospital saga,” Hannon asked.
“Well of course I didn’t, but continue,” Harris replied.
“You didn’t sign the contract,” Hannon asked.
“I was the minister for health when the contract went to government,” he replied.
“The Government of Ireland made a decision to build the National Children’s Hospital. I was a part of the government.”
How that will cut it with the public, I’m not sure.
While there were no overall winners in the debate, there were strong moments from the leaders of the smaller political parties.
Aontú’s Peadar Tóibín had his moments, but particularly his needling of Taoiseach Simon Harris over the National Children’s Hospital and other government overspends.
There was criticism as to how the early section of the debate was handled, with one Social Democrat source questioning why the seven other leaders were there in the first place.
“It’s really a 3-way debate,” they said.
Something that won’t come as a surprise was that all 10 of the leaders voiced their support for the Occupied Territories Bill.
But this didn’t stop a spat between Micheál Martin and Richard Boyd Barrett, with the People Before Profit leader accusing the government parties of doublespeak on the matter.
The Tánaiste sniped back, saying that Palestinians are pleased with the response of the Irish government to the continued bombardment of Gaza.
10-way debates, while they can be entertaining at times, simply don’t work.