TV debate fails to set pulses racing

The nerves were there. The blinding lights, flashing cameras, and the leaders armed with folders under their arms. This was it. The last in the leader’s debates and just days before people go to the polls for the 2016 general election.

Party leaders arrived as a gaggle of media waited at the front of the RTÉ TV studios in Donnybrook, Dublin. Do you want to be taoiseach? Are you ready for the debate? Each stopped to give their own spin.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams had abandoned his party’s battle bus and arrived in a four-wheel drive, accompanied by his minders.