In what was certainly the most lively debate in the campaign so far a studio audience unpicked their presidential prey with entertaining flair and admirable precision. The occasion was a special edition yesterday morning of the Today With Pat Kenny radio show.
The format was inspired. A studio full of supporters (fans of Dana and Mary McAleese oddly located on the left, Adi Roche, Mary Banotti and Derek Nally devotees on the right) were not taking any presidential prisoners.
Mary Banotti was first to feel the brunt of the audience during a discussion punctuated by moans, groans, cheers and jeers.
A Mary McAleese supporter wanted to know why she was "the only candidate against whom no slurs or innuendo have been thrown in this campaign".
Ms Banotti rejected the notion and said there had been "feverish activity" in some quarters to throw innuendo at her over the weekend.
But the questioner was relentless. "Who are your PR people that have clothed you in cotton wool?" she asked. Maybe Ms Banotti had "someone else doing the batting" for her, she suggested. "Like Mr Bruton" perhaps. "I am running my own campaign and I have been running it, I believe, spectacularly well," Ms Banotti replied.
It was Mr Nally's turn next. He had the media on his mind. "I am complaining about the coverage over the weekend . . . One candidate, Mary McAleese, got about 50 seconds on the news last night, and the rest of us got about 30 seconds between us," he said. Pat Kenny reminded Mr Nally that he had got far more than anyone else during the "John Caden/Eoghan Harris business".
Then the candidate in-fighting started. Adi Roche needled the FG candidate about what she saw as John Bruton's assertion that Mary Banotti represented a "Fine Gael presidency" that "would just be representative of one group of Irish society". Mary Banotti turned nasty as she wondered how Dana could have a vote when she had been living outside the country for seven years. "Does Mary Banotti believe that Dana's vote was illegal in some way?" inquired Pat Kenny.
"I don't. I'm not saying anything, Pat," replied Banotti, who tried to clarify her position over deafening roars from the floor.
A Mary Banotti supporter had an article which quoted Mary McAleese as being disillusioned with life in the Republic in 1987 and saying that "neither war nor an Exocet missile" would make her return. What was behind her change of heart in 1997, he wanted to know? The McAleese/FF supporters, notably vociferous throughout the debate, were in their element. "Is that one of your questions, Mary [Banotti]? It's a slur," they shouted. Ms McAleese rejected the quote, saying she hadn't moved to the North officially until 1988 and she left because her husband got a job there.
A question about the candidates' financial affairs opened another sensitive wound. One particular political party was "doing the digging" in relation to Adi Roche and her husband's finances. "Which party was that?" asked Pat Kenny. It was, said Roche, the same party that orchestrated the smear campaign . . . the one who had tried to ruin her campaign . . . "Who, Who? Name them," roared the McAleese camp. The inference was that she was speaking about FF, said Pat Kenny. If she had proof she should expose the people concerned, commented Ms McAleese.
There were lots of lighter moments in the entertaining hourlong debate, and it was a Dana supporter who raised the biggest laugh of all. He was referring to Mr Nally's proposal to legalise prostitution and wanted to know whether the former garda intended to replace Mary Robinson's candle with a red light bulb.