One in five voters tuned into leaders’ debate

Almost one in five adults in Ireland tuned in to watch the first leaders’ debate of the general election campaign, which was followed by all four of the contenders declining to say whether they won or lost the live TV battle.

TV3 and Newstalk radio hosted the first of four live discussions on Thursday night and figures released afterwards show an average of 430,000 people watched the 90-minute programme.

In all, 803,600 people tuned in to see the four-way debate between Fine Gael’s Enda Kenny, Labour’s Joan Burton, Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin, and Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams for more than one minute.