The two candidates in the Presidential Election have made pitches to undecided voters in the final TV debate of the campaign. <\/b><\/p>\n
Here’s 7 key takeaways from tonight’s Prime Time debate.<\/b><\/p>\n
1. Opening pitch<\/b><\/p>\n
Heather Humphreys said she would unite people and pointed to her professional experience as well as being a mother and a grandmother.<\/p>\n
She described herself as a middle-of-the-road person who wanted a safe country for her grandchildren.<\/p>\n
Watch: Heather Humphreys’ opening statement<\/b><\/p>\n
\n
In an interesting and perhaps revealing use of language, a few days before polling, Catherine Connolly said she looked “forward to serving as president” and would do so with humility and pride.<\/p>\n
She said that she would stand with those who have less and would be an independent president with an independent mind.<\/p>\n
Later in the debate, she also spoke about “When I become president” before adding the caveat of “with the votes on Friday”.<\/p>\n
Watch: Catherine Connolly’s opening statement<\/b><\/p>\n
\n
2. Banks<\/b><\/p>\n
“Yes I represented credit institutions and clients.”<\/p>\n
This was the clearest answer yet from Catherine Connolly about her work as a barrister before she was elected a TD.<\/p>\n
She insisted that she had answered this question before but those seven words did bring more clarity to the matter.<\/p>\n
Heather Humphreys denied the approach taken by Fine Gael to get this answer amounted to a smear campaign and insisted it was simply a straight question.<\/p>\n
3. Foreign affairs<\/b><\/p>\n
There was a pledge from Catherine Connolly to speak truth to power adding that the country’s voice has to be used to call out genocide.<\/p>\n
She contended that any sensible person would have to be concerned about the increasing amount of money going into militarisation in Europe.<\/p>\n
Heather Humphreys spoke about meeting EU ministers regularly and she understood the concerns of countries like Finland which fear Russian aggression.<\/p>\n
She said, too, that one of the country’s biggest selling points is its membership of the EU and it attracts international companies here.<\/p>\n
4. What would you say to US President?<\/b><\/p>\n
Catherine Connolly has previously said that genocide in Gaza was enabled by the US.<\/p>\n
But she was asked if she would say this to the US President if she met him? “It will depend what is on the agenda,” she answered.<\/p>\n
The Galway West TD said people are aware that being the President of Ireland is a different role to the one she currently occupies, indicating that her approach will be consistent with the constitutional parameters of the office.<\/p>\n
5. Shane O’Farrell<\/b><\/p>\n
Heather Humphreys was under pressure once more to explain why she did not do more to help the family of Shane O’Farrell.<\/p>\n
He was fatally hit by a driver, who should have been in jail, while he was out cycling in Monaghan in 2011.<\/p>\n
The former Monaghan TD said she was was sorry that she was not able to deliver for the family what they wanted.<\/p>\n
6. Immigration<\/b><\/p>\n
Heather Humphreys said she would use the \u00c1ras as a place to have safe conversations about other people’s cultures in an effort to broaden understanding.<\/p>\n
She urged people to go home from a protest tonight in Saggart saying “this is not who we are as a country”.<\/p>\n
Catherine Connolly described what was happening in Saggart as deeply disturbing adding that it was time for leadership from politicians.<\/p>\n
7. Regrets<\/b><\/p>\n
Heather Humphreys said the Government followed the medical advice during the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n
But she regrets the fact that the relatives of dying people could not be with them in their final moments.<\/p>\n
A way should have been found to avoid that happening, she now believes.<\/p>\n
Catherine Connolly’s regret aligned with Heather Humphreys and she feels that she should not have supported the Government’s pandemic restrictions.<\/p>\n
Watch: Presidential candidates are asked about their regrets<\/b><\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The two candidates in the Presidential Election have made pitches to undecided voters in the final TV debate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-137089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}