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AFTER ROUND ONE on TV3 last week, it was RTÉ’s turn to have the party leaders debate each other in Limerick tonight.
Renua’s Lucinda Creighton, the SocDems’ Stephen Donnelly and People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett joined Enda, Joan, Micheál and Gerry on stage at the University Concert Hall.
Claire Byrne had the unenviable task of moderating proceedings as the seven party leaders went at it….
1. An altogether more civil affair
Despite this being a seven-way debate it was far less shouty than last week’s slugfest on TV3. A lot of that had to do with the excellent work of Byrne who, bluntly, took no bull.
Several times she cut the leaders off when they started squabbling and talking over each other. It proved effective and popular with the audience:
2. Enda holds his punches…
Perhaps it was the format and the fact there were three extra voices to be heard this week, but it was hard to escape the sense that the Taoiseach was once again silent for long periods.
Kenny seemed to think that staying out of the rows would benefit him. Perhaps it did, but it also allowed the others, like Donnelly and Richard Boyd-Barrett, to make their case, while Adams and Martin squabbled, and Burton answered questions she wasn’t asked.
3. … and consults the archives
It’s clear that the government parties are set on targeting Micheál Martin and the Taoiseach repeatedly went to his notes to drag up the Fianna Fáil leader’s past. First he recalled how Martin told Bloomberg and Fox News in 2010 that Ireland wouldn’t need a bailout.
Later, Martin staunchly defended his record on health, saying he “disagreed fundamentally” with Byrne’s analysis of it as she put a question to him.
“Rubbish, rubbish!” shouted Kenny across the studio before he dipped back into his notes and dragged up a pledge Martin made as minister for health in 2002 when he said the government would “permanently abolish waiting lists in two years”.
Broadly, Martin didn’t have as good a night as he did last week, the format not allowing him to aim as many direct criticisms at the government as he did on TV3.
4. Stephen Donnelly vs. The Establishment
It was flagged beforehand that the SocDems could do well out of this debate and indeed Stephen Donnelly, one of their three leaders, was a strong performer throughout. His basic argument was that the political establishment was wrong on everything, from cutting USC to the best way of supporting businesses.
He made the difficult argument that now is not the time to abolish USC with “economic storm clouds gathering”. It was a view that diverged from most of the other leaders on stage, but it might well have appealed to voters who aren’t buying the current round of auction politics from the others.
Perhaps most interestingly Donnelly found a fan in the Taoiseach, who knows well that he might need the SocDems after the election:
But Burton was less enamoured by the Wicklow TD, no doubt aware that the SocDems are threatening to take Labour votes all over the country:
5. Angry Gerry
There was a particularly heated exchange between the two opposition leaders early on in the debate when Micheál Martin said that Adams had been denying IRA membership for 30 years and expected people to believe them.
Adams challenged Martin to go to the gardaí if he had any information to that effect. Martin shot back that there isn’t a guard in the country who believes Adams.
But by that stage the Sinn Féin leader had launched into an extended rant, with his voice raised and lots of gesticulating, about how all of this didn’t help the homeless children, people on trolleys and others all over the country.
Adams’s anger at facing the usual questions over his past clearly got to him and he seemed more shaken by it than he was last week on TV3. Twice he referred to Martin, Kenny and Burton as “the three amigos” but the joke fell flat on both occasions.
6. Richard Boyd-Barrett takes off
The AAA-PBP representative was fairly subdued early on, but when he excoriated the government over cutting the dole for under 26s he got the first round of applause of the night. Buoyed by that he increased the volume and the hand waving and before you knew it was just like his regular shouty Dáil performances.
“If the public sector does not create jobs, our young people will not come back here,” he said to yet more applause. They were putting their hands together again when the Dún Laoghaire TD slammed the government for closing down local emergency department services. On the clap-o-meter, Boyd-Barrett was the undoubted winner of the night.
7. Joan struggles again
The Tánaiste is having her first experience of TV debates in this election and, to be frank, she just isn’t at the races. She was the worst performer last week and she struggled again tonight. Several times she spoke about issues completely unrelated to the question she was asked.
When asked about broken promises, Burton spoke about the economy growing by an average of 3.1% over the next five years. When asked about jobs, she talked about the government having reopened Templemore and recruiting extra gardaí. In the section on housing, the moderator’s intervention was telling:
At one point, Burton began speaking over Kenny to make a point that he broadly agreed with while trying to make his own. He looked rather bemused at the intervention.
8. Lucinda on the edge
The Renua leader was to the far-right of the stage and seemed to get very few opportunities to contribute.
She talked of the need to depoliticise health, overhaul the tax system and introduce a flat tax, and got time to speak about the party’s controversial three strikes crime policy. But none of it seemed to enthuse the audience. Of the three smaller party leaders, she was the least relevant on the night.
9. Claire Byrne for Taoiseach
It’s somewhat cliched these days to praise a moderator after a scrappy debate, but Byrne really was excellent. At no stage tonight did the debate get out of control or even threaten to get out of control.
She cut off the leaders when they started shouting at each other and she wasn’t afraid to challenge them when she felt they needed challenging:
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If only we could just elect Stephen Donnelly as Taoiseach and be done with it. Smartest politician on stage by a country mile.
One thing that came across tonight was the younger leaders Richard, Stephen and Lucinda came across with fire in their bellies. This is by no means meant as an ageist comment, but perhaps it’s time for all of us if we want a future in this country to rethink who is best to lead us and our children into a fairer society
totally agree
Brian Hayes thinks Enda dominated the debate. He must have fell asleep and it came to him in a dream because he certainly wasn’t watching the same debate that I was?
Donnelly showed us the level our politicians should be at.
Adams is a clueless dinosaur, a parody of himself, capable only of denying things and tweeting about trampolining.
Definitely agree with you about Donnelly and the level our politicians should be at.
Adams wasn’t great but even you have to admit he still came across better than Kenny and Burton? RBB came across pretty good but his policies were far too vague, very little substance, The surprise of the night I have to say, grudgingly was Lucinda Creighton.
Judging by the Tweet machine the other debate on TV3 was better.
Diarmuid, maybe for once, instead of going off on one of your usual rants that you would like to maybe make an observation on some of the others present. There were 7 in total. Do you agree / disagree with their policies perhaps?
‘Diarmiud’/Leo Lowe every time your party leader Jim Allister tuv leader makes a rare invited appearance on utv/bBC he makes a knob of himself thus reflecting people like you who vote for him.
As for your ‘national’ choice of party….ukip..another bunch of knobs.
If Adams is a Dinosaur, Kenny and Bruton are amoebas, with their brain cell dying of loneliness!!!!!!
Someone should tell Gerry we’ve passed Peak Beard.
Did Gerry Adams refuse your advances in a previous era dear mud?? – you go on and on about him like a former lover scorned, I think you have a secret crush on him and as he doesn`t want anything to do with you, you are all bitter and twisted…..need to go see the agony aunt or a shrink dear mud – because you are definitely not over his rejection yet.
Joan still sounds like a kango hammer
At 8am on a Sunday morning after a bottle of Jack!
that’s an insult to hammers in general
More chance of getting a straight answer from a hammer than from Joan
Did you say quango. She sure heard it and no doubt will have a good friend ready to run it. Now where will she need a handy number for all her spare time coming her way.
…and she has a face like a bag of hammers.
she’s more of a quango hammer
On a galvanised tin roof..
God but Enda and Joan make painful watching. He just repeats rehearsed lines and she doesn’t seem to know whats going on around her. I don’t care who you fancy, just please don’t vote for them!
Joan Burton is going to change her name to Joan Bruton and apply for membership of Fine Gael. She was strong in her support at the end for FG. Joan wants second preferences for a right wing party. It tells us everything.
If there are any Traitor party members still living in reality I would imagine they are extremely concerned at Joan Burton’s performance. Enda Kenny a famously weak debater, even manage to outperform her.
I think I fancy Clare Byrne
Leo And thats what want to continue running (ruining) the country and if there was a winner to night it was only one Clair Byrne what a performance from her well done Clair
I see by your comment Richard that you found the whole debate interesting !
Why is there no Claire Byrne Appreciation Society on FB?……..there shoukd be!
Because she’s a dizzy daytime bint on way too late in the day, masquerading as a political hack!
D’unredactable………and you are……?
Where has my comment gone from this post? All I said was “the fact the audience laughed says it all”
1.Donnelly
2.RBB
3=Martin/Adams
5.kenny
6.Creighton
7.Poor auld Joan
The smaller parties where the winners tonight
Almost agree
1.Donnelly
2.RBB
3=Martin/Adams
5.Creighton
6 .joan/kenny
Donnelly talked with the passion of a management consultant
1. Donnelly 2. RBB Forget the rest.
You silly little labour bunny, that’s what the man in red said in the debate.
Donnelly – Really strong start but as CB said later he had no policy answers.
Martin – not as good as last week. He toned down his bite.
Creighton – impressive on crime. Good performance.
Kenny – Average. Nothing to write home about in a good or bad way.
Boyd Barrett – wants to give everything away to everybody for free in a magical wonderful fairyland of happiness. Populist!
Adams – weak when he fluffed his figures a few times like on rural economy and on Garda numbers. Like Kenny he was average.
Burton – her voice really started to irritate near the end.
A seven way debate never shed light on anything so why did anyone expect anything to come out of this? The only ‘winner’ was Claire Byrne who got to show off how authoritative she sounded in telling people to behave. The format allows the bigger fish to hide in the reeds and allows the small fish to act up like big fish.
I think Claire Byrne won the debate tonight. Brilliant.
Primary school prissyness was her forté given the group of rabble she had to keep in check!!
RBB/Donnelly, Adams performed best,Joan the drone is car crash material
Big fan of Donnelly but felt he struggled at times and lost the message – I’ll put it down to inexperience for the most part. It’s a pity in particular relating to housing as I like the SocDems vision on that and Claire Byrne seemed to catch him out with the quango idea.. though he responded well later on when she tried to criticise him for talking to frontliners to solve problems.
Overall thought he was far and away the strongest to start but faded a bit.
Joan is just awful, how Labour have come to this I don’t know
Donnelly was fantastic. Barrett wasn’t too bad either. The rest were just pointing the finger & blaming each other. Lucinda looked like she wanted to commit mass murder…
She does have the “Arbeit macht frei” mantra about her, I really hope somebody at rte with a sense of humour purposely placed on the far right of the stage.
Claire Byrne knows her stuff.
Isnt it an awful pity that we cant cast a vote on who should be Taoiseach.. Stephen Donnelly really impressed me.. Very smart man..
Enda and Joan were useless. Donnelly and Boyd Barrett won this night. Enda and Joan are parrots continually repeating the same tired cliche lines at this stage. Their strategists showed be fired for gross incompetence
I don’t agree with the assessment of Ms. Lucinda. She was concise, articulate and her views on crime earned her applause.
Her views on crime are bonkers.
3 strikes,which failed everywhere it’s been tried,to be implemented “judiciously”?What does that even mean?And no indication of how we’ll pay for it.It’s the worst kind of populism.
“Judiciously” would indicate to me that she means at judicial level – through the courts. Obviously to be brought in by statute. The only additional long-term cost I can see would be the cost of holding the incarcerated for an extra amount of time but if this reduces crime, you would save money on resources, so swings and roundabouts.
I think it’s inaccurate to say it has failed everywhere – it is still being implemented by some states in the US. While I would also like more information on this policy from Renua, I did think as I have stated above that Lucinda spoke sense and I also believed that she wants a change in the system and she sold that quite well last night.
The 3-Strike policy is a failure in the US, even where it exists already. It supports the U.S record of most citizens incarcerated per capita and relies on the privatisation of prisons. I can partially agree with her about making like sentences closer to an actual life-span, but a punishment like that should never be so arbitrarily as a 3-Strike system would create.
Decent synopsis, with one exception – the audience were very enthusiastic of Lucinda’s policies regards tackling crime
The problem is Creighton’s views were populist at this moment but dig deeper she is very right wing anti 8th amendment and is more like Dev in the 40′s. She would pull Ireland back 100 years.
Does calling it a 7 way not just sexualise the whole thing? The last thing I need at this hour is the thought of a 7 way involving Joan!
but one involving Claire Byrne is a different kettle of fish
Wouldn’t that be 8 way if Claire was involved, still I would join in only if get to give enda & Joan the shafting they have been doling out
@Steve Mac: Stop on about the fish already!
Richard Boyd Barrett and Gerry did well tonight IMO!
What was the point of Lucinda! She’s a non entity with her homophobic mug! Totally irrelevant there tonight!
Boyd-Barrett just said everything was bad, nothing positive and he would give everybody everything that wanted something for free… including a free Garda station for every community in the audience
Hugh suggests Adams was “more shaken” this week at questions about the IRA, and that his “three Amigos” line didn’t work at all. On “The Spin Room” on RTE after the debate, the panel agreed that Adams was much more prepared this week for the “IRA” question and that his “Three Amigo” line was a big winner for him, and so much so that he used or a second time. Laughable how people can interpret the same things in totally opposite ways.
On an asid, I highly doubt Gerry Adams would be either shaken nor unprepared for Micheal or Enda rolling out ‘the IRA line’ when they feel uncomfortable. Pity the two of them and Non-Entity-Joan aren’t as keen to talk about the IMF as they are to talk about the IRA.
Yeah it’s laughable how you defend PIRA terrorism, but not RIRA terrorism.
I think Gerry did really well and I feel he won the debate, Enda was a drone, RBB spoke impressively. Mícheál spoke well but was angering in that everything he said the government didn’t do, many were problems he and his party created – honesty and an apology (honest or not!) and a lack of crappy jargon would give him a better chance. Despite fundamentally disagreeing with her on just about everything, I’m worried Renua will pick up the odd wee vote because Creighton spoke very confidently.
You’re right about Claire, Hugh. Very well mediated.
Your assessment of Creighton is way off the mark though, and I’m no fan of her, she did well.
Adams wasn’t rattled by that accusation, how many times as he had to answer it? Well used to it at this stage. He was average because of his shaky answer on business for rural areas, Claire did grill him more than she did anyone else though.
Stephen Donnelly won hand down. SDP are a genuine alternative, the election is too soon though, they need more recruits.
Boyd Barret is boss.
Haha
Joan has gone for a Burton.
I think the left leaning leaders all did well. Burton was weakest. Kenny was very average and didnt score any points really. Martin was just ok.
Stephen first and then Richard..Adams was rambling at times…
Yet again the abhorent murder of Det Garda Gerry McCabe rolled out for political advantage from those who have not got the spine,decency,self respect to seek justice for the victims,family’s of Dublin/Monaghan/Cavan bombings.
Murders of policemen in NI were equally abhorent as the murder by the IRA of over a dozen Garda
Yeah it’s not as if the RUC were colluding in the mass sectarian murder of catholics in the six coun…oh, wait
Deflection from rabid shinnerbots.
The same shinnerbots who defend the PIRA terrorist group its their murder of Gardaí and innocent civilians.
Hugh, I knew you had a hard on for Enda, but calling it a 7 way? You kinky man ;)
Donnelly and Barrett very good.Joan Burton say goodbye to politics.
RBB is giving a free Garda station to everyone in the audience
Claire is going to get a nice pay rise next time her contract comes around. (Especially when the trend over the next five years will head towards publishing gender average pay in an organization.)
Not an AAA/PBP fan but impressed by Barrett. Donnelly good but played a little to hard on the establishment. for my liking. Poor debate overall, don’t know why Byrne pushed the crime angle so hard when they were all basically in agreement (except for Lucinda’s right wing guff), just used it as an excuse to get in digs on smaller parties with a different focus. The person who approved that civil war politics pop as the final question of the night needs to be sacked immediately.
The real take away from tonight is that motorways cause rural crime, our leader has spoken
Richard Boyd Barrett was by far the winner tonight, followed by Stephen Donnelly, and I hate to say it Lucinda was third. Joan Burton was very weak and quite embarrassing ! Time for new blood in government. Claire Byrne was super.
The big advantage is that FG and FF will speak to those who want no change.
Labour is for those who don’t know and who don’t care that they don’t know but who are happy to be led to their perks.
I thought Adams did much better in this debate. In fairness and this goes for all the party leaders, it usually is the finance minister / spokesperson that you look to for clarification and detail on the economic / tax side of things. Maybe they should hold a debate like the one tonight involving the finance reps, the other one on the Claire Byrne live show was a bit short lived.
I thought Boyd Barrett and Stephen Donnelly were also very good. It is clear that both along with sf are all thinking along the same lines which is good and shows a real alternative in politics. Think people will walk away thinking after tonight what has happened in the past and will continue into the future with FF/FG/lLabour.
Shinnerbot supports his/her Dear Leader.
Shocker.
Adams was an embarrassment.
Whilst I found Renua to be quite interesting, not one party touched upon the issue of immigration. Simply put it is a huge issue, and it’s avoided at all costs, why?? Fear of the “R” word??
Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but did the camera angle change for Kenny, Adams, Martin and Moanie and the matron, compared to the rest? The others looked as if they knew what they were saying but the fore mentioned had a t. prompt to read from?
Stephen Donnelly can only try to “manage”the economy with a small party. We need a strong leader and a big party that can tackle the biggest problems.
Paudy, you have to face reality, Labour are gone. Nobody wants to kiss Kenny’s Ass, Martin is still part of the brigade that started this mess. So who? If FF & FG jump into bed that just gives SF the dream key (once Adams is gone) and you can kiss good bye to old politics. So maybe to get rid of the lot. FG&FF should run the country for another 5 years until people are so screwed into poverty and Ireland becomes a banana republic. Just like the old days.
This governments policy is not to increase income tax, but what we will do is introduce a property tax and then we will introduce a water charge without inquiring of the ability to pay. OK so far, we will then increase prescription charges by 400% after that we will increase car tax and then abolish the phone and electric allowence and we will then increase the enviromental tax on coal and briquettes what we can try then is take the medical cards we might get away with it, and then we will scrap the death grant you see that looks better than increasing income tax or the tax 12.5% we charge inward investment companies. Basically we can screw the elderly and those less fortunate in society.
That is what has been done by our present government !
Donnelly best speaker, Lucinda second, don’t agree with her policies but she spoke very well, confident and articulate.
Michael next, hard for him to deal with all the attacks but he had a bit of fight.
Enda and Gerry very quiet considering they are two of the largest supported parties, safe and conservative.
Rbb was passionate but closing statement was god awful. Also quite populist and doesn’t seem as ready to govern as other small parties.
Joan should pack it in. I feel sorry for her because last GE she was quite popular and she hasn’t done much individually to earn the hate. Can see a lot of floating former labour voters going to SDs.
What’s the big obsession with Donnelly?
He can actually speak recognizable English with stammering and stuttering – a rare quality in an Irish politician, Michael.
*without stammering etc
Donnelly actually focused on answering the question rather than rambling off on a tangent like Joan and End a did
Claire Byrne was the best reason to watch this bunfight!
Lets see, the Social Democrates have no polices because they want to talk to the Gardaí, ambulance drivers, doctors, nurses etc etc before making their polices but yet they wait until they get into government before they do this? My question is what have they been doing since they formed or is this the new the dog ate my homework?
Then Renua wants to bring in legislation like the U.S. for criminals knowing that the European Court of Justice will fine Ireland if they do what they say they are going to do and their idol is to copy Germany or is that Merkel. A few in the audience were that shocked at them that a few had they mouths open as she spoke about punishing parents for their children..
Then Enda acting like a school boy in body language with a pen flying about the place as he ways it in the air and everytime he spoke, you could see the eyes of those in the audience glazing over as he spoke, no leader material at all.
Then the more Joan spoke the more I thought she was trying to act TRUMP, was it a debate or just slagging with her. She got the least claps from the audience…
And someone told Stephen Donnelly Tony Blairs body language skills, namely using your fist with the thumb to make your points seem more genuine… Like putting bluetac onto a table…
Richaed Boy hadn’t a clue about Gardaí and tried to excuse criminality and drugs on the poor gits needing help from the HSE…
Michael you generally write very good posts, did we watch the same debate? I think the time has come to hand over to a younger and newer types of politician, we couldn’t possibly be worse off than we are now.
I hope they’re not famous last words !
I saw the second half, have the rest recorded… But I suspect that Renua and S.D. are just more of the same because of the stock they come from?
I know too many tricks politicians use and when ever I see them being used I just think to myself that they are not clever liars but untrustworthy liars…
Stephen Donnelly did not answer the question but went on another track, he had since the last election to find out what doctors, nurses, Gardaí, firemen thought and wanted but even up to last night he hadn’t a clue what they wanted and will not bother until they are in the government, that is laziness in my book like the dog ate my homework???
Stephen Donnelly as an economist spoke as I expected, yes he should have been aware and probably is of all the problems in the country, but I would believe him when it comes to finances, in fairness I could be naive here.
I do fear that own interests might colour what people say in this election and that goes for all of them…
You might well be right Michael I live in fear of present crowd being voted back in, our pockets have been picked enough, as I said next weeks final debate might clarify things for all of us.
Anyone into finance seems to live in that world, look at the Eurogroup and the ECB, they are BLINDED SOMETIMES by the idea what they have been taught was right when it is not…
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/mar/25/eurozone-crisis-cyprus-bailout-deal-agreed#block-51506c6ab5795d794abf445a
Dijsselbloem: Cyprus deal is template for the future
Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem has sent the euro tumbling by declaring that the Cyprus rescue should be seen as a template for the rest of the eurozone.
In an interview with reporters in Brussels after the Cyprus plan was agreed, Dijsselbloem argued that Europe could now take a new approach to tackling struggling banks.
Dijsselbloem said (via Reuters):
What we’ve done last night is what I call pushing back the risks.
If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be ‘Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?’.
If the bank can’t do it, then we’ll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we’ll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders.”
Banks, bondholders before people…
The problem is the Euro as the Eurogroup and the ECB with the Troika will tell us what to do and we do it because we do not own the Euro but only share / use it. So no matter what is said before the election, Ireland will have to do what it is told and all we can hope for is someone who can communicate well with them and not roll over to please those E.U. Plutocrates rather than us the citizens of Ireland?
Who did Dijsselbloem and the Eurogroup go after but people with their life savings…
Actual we can’t be fined by the ECJ because we have an optin on justice s d home affairs in the EU Treaties. It is true that could go to the ECHR but it’s not an EU institution so our courts take precedence
An optin means the right to optin or out on a case by case basis.
I know if it is brought in then the E.U. will be giving out and will prevent it…
Lucinda was excellent – as someone who gave Renua no time at all – she was articulate, clear, eloquent and precise.
Donnelly good too but floundered on health. Joan eviscerated herself – still laughing at her awful “stacks of reports” jibe. Adams was poor. Barrett great at articulating problems but offered no real solutions.
Can I just say? It’s all I hear whenever Joan talks.
Not a single mention of climate change, refugee crisis, brexit.
One fleeting mention of 8th amendment by RBB
These are supposed to be “leaders”
Incredibly weak debate all round
Burton disastrous, Donnelly impressive, RBB sincere but vague. Claire Byrne the winner
I think Politics today should be left to the young guns Kenny , Bruton ,Martin are old school politics and take Noonan with them. Jerry Adams is very knowledge having dealt with affairs both North and South but the young guys ahead a head of the game
It would be nice (and fair) to have an unbiased report on #ge16 for once.
Ouch! Is that ironic? Surely there’s more appetite for a tiochfaidh Ar la
Lucinda for Justice minister
A sure sign of madness, to repeat the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome each time, voting FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG FF FG and expecting a different outcome, well, it says it all really doesn’t it.
Michael Martin will bet be next taoiseach as the irish paddy Alzheimer’s voter has forgotten what Fianna failed did to the country.
A brief reminder on what scandals they were involved from 1997 to 2011
Ray burke jailed Ivor callely proscecutted, ned okeefe for expenses over claiming let alone bertie. Michael himself jumped ship and left the most honest Fianna fail man of them all brian linehan at that time was gravely Ill to be left in charge. This crowd put brian linehan in charge by appointment of barry cowens brother brian. What a mess and legacy this crowd has and it beggars belief that the paddy voter are willing to forgive this crowd. doesn’t say much of the voter
Yes the real winner was Clare on the debate
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