Presidential Election.

From the mistakes in the past of building large single-tenure social houusing estates, it is Govt policy to not repeat those mistakes.

CC should know that.

That is part of the reason why the LA are no longer building large estates.

Debate was good craic if nothing else!

Thought Catherine was the most impressive, Heather was fine and didn't say much of note either which she's probably happy with as favourite, Jim had a bizarre performance, seemed like he was coached into being something he's not and performed like a caricature of a politician.

it’s a simple fact that immigrants , of which the vast majority are legal and working are being blamed for everything and the truth us the problems people are referring to such as health and housing have been problems for years created by our own government policies

I'm leaning towards Gavin now.

Connolly has the presidential look. Humphreys seemed nothing other than an overpromoted county councillor. Gavin seemed like an speaker at some kind of business dinner. As for Cuddihy, talk radio leve and utterly forgettable. Gavin will have to do a lot of recovery work for the RTE debate.

Trying to judge this in terms of a debate/speaking competition. I would say CC and JG were about even and HH was back a bit. JG used his hands a lot. Some see that as a negative but I don't. JG was better than I thought he would be. CC was as I expected. HH was a good bit back from where I thought she might be. Certainly don't see her ahead of JG in that debate.

Does it affect how I decide to vote, maybe. The military industrial complex can be applied to the USA but really Europe would generally much rather to be spending money on something else. CC's reading too much Noam Chomsky.

Catherine won that easily. She's clearly speaking more from experience rather than script. I left that debate thinking it would be painful to have to listen to Jim or Heather speaking for a long period. And speaking is such a major part of the presidential role.

I think the fact that Catherine is an Independent will work in her favour.

She's a fluent Irish speaker.

A master's degree in clinical psychology and a law degree, she's clearly got her wits about her.

I think Catherine ticks the most boxes here.

CC was the best by a long mile.

Gavin looks like he is wearing a Mission Impossible mask and if you take of the mask you see Micheal "Hunt" Martin.

HH got a bit better near the end but thats still not enough.

FF HQ will be worried tonight and are hoping their media pals in the press do them a solid.

I really don't understand what FF were going for with this, Kelleher is a very reasonable candidate who would have galvanised the base and is independent minded enough to at least have a shot at appealing outside the party.

Initially I thought the Gavin pitch was a different direction for a complete independent who'd approach things from a non-political perspective like Mary McAleese but then he rocks up at the debate with all the Micheál Martin mannerisms and aggression, like he's an AliExpress version of a FF candidate. It's bizarre.

Least worst option is HH and I mean least worst. CC has views that are just not palatable for most, that incls a good chunk of labour where the former party leader has already said he ain’t voting for her. JG is just a disaster, Billy Kelleher must be having a good laugh at this. It’s becoming more obvious that if Steen got on the ballot, she may have actually won this 😳

That's what Michael McDowell thought.

“Debate was good craic if nothing else!”

Jayzuz do you get out much? 😀

Saying that I Just looked back over the first 15 - 25 minutes or so 🤪

Catherine’s opening statement was aspirational around what she WOULD do.

Heathers opening statement spent most of her time explaining what she DID do.

Jim’s opening statement was “OK” but not near as strong as the other two

Just going back over the debate:

Catherine got 3 minutes uninterrupted essentially - she spoke well

Jim got again about 3 minutes - less eloquent and confident which is surprising because he was talking about defence

Heather then got her time to answer - after the first minute of her speaking she got challenged on government spending which she had to defend - Heather only had about 2 minutes speaking before ….. Catherine got back in and talked for another two minutes essentially steeling Heathers opening tome .😀

Yes Catherine did speak well - but I think she got too much uninterrupted time - interviewer constantly interrupted Jim (maybe that was a good thing 😀) - Heather responded well to questions overall - but Catherine got a hell of a lot of monologues this evening - I reckon for the first 20 minutes Catherine was speaking for about 8-9 of those minutes - bad facilitation yes- but hey, she can’t complain about this interview this evening - she got a lot of platform time compared to the other two

The problem for FF is that very few people trust the press release recyclers these days. Anyone who watched that debate will have seen Connolly and two also-rans. She managed to appear presidential while the others waffled. Even Cuddihy couldn't paper over the cracks in the Gavin and Humphreys performances.

Immigration increases demand for all these things and we cannot cope. We need to reduce immigration to get these things in order, and if that requires slowing down the economy then so be it.

Of course, nobody said that tonight, nor did the presenter ask them what was the level of immigration that we can cope with.