Sinn Féin:

• The party said it will abolish the Universal Social Charge (USC), which was introduced during the recession, on the first €30,000 earned.
• It will also oblige employers to pay a living wage where they can afford to do so.
• Sinn Féin said it will restore the eligibility age for the State pension to 65. (It is currently at 66 and will increase to 68 by 2028.)

Fine Gael:

• It aims to raise their annual pension by at least €25 a week, or €1,300 a year, over the next five years.
• It plans to introduce a new State Transition Pension for those retiring at 66.
• Fine Gael said it will change the point at which a person pays the higher rate of tax to €50,000 over the next five years.
• It said it will raise the USC exemption threshold from €13,000 to €20,500.

Fianna Fáil:

• The party said it will introduce a 4:1 spending to taxation policy ratio to ensure that for every euro in tax reduction from available financial resources at least four will be invested in services.
• It said it will reduce the USC rate from 4.5% to 3.5%.
• It would increase the standard rate income tax band by €3,000 for a single person and €6,000 for a couple.

A moment of reprieve.

Micheál Martin dropped his notes and Leo Varadkar picked them up for him with a smile.

Now, back to arguing.

Image source, RTÉ

Image source, RTÉ

The healthcare debate has brought out the fact checkers.

Leo Varadkar claims that Micheál Martin's stats "have been proved to be false".

"They are not false, excuse me!" Mr Martin retorts.

Image source, RTÉ

"Week in, week out in the last Dáil we raised the issue of the trolley count," says the Sinn Féin leader.

"Week in, week out the taoiseach said the problem isn't beds, the problem isn't capacity.

"When in fact it was as plain as the nose that the issue was capacity.

"We should open the 500 beds that are currently closed across the hospital system."

Micheál Martin is asked about Fianna Fáil's pledge to reduce emergency department waiting times to four hours, despite the current target of six hours being missed.

He describes it as a "target" and says his party is proposing to "urgently deal" with waiting lists, emergency departments and home care hours.

Image source, RTE

Image source, RTÉ

It was put to Mr Varakdar that his party has had "nine years in government" to sort out the health care issues.

"It's not right to say we've had nine years," he said.

"It's only two years since we've balanced the books."

He added that he would focus on the issue of health and that he is investing more in healthcare.

RTE's Vincent Kearney, who's been following Leo Varadkar on the campaign trail, says the taoiseach is "up for the fight".

Micheál Martin describes the homeless situation in Ireland is a "scandal".

He says it has "rocketed since 2016".

"It has got worse, despite all the promises we got then."

Image source, RTE

Mr Martin says "people are ashamed" that so many young children are homeless.

Fianna Fáil:

• Fianna Fáil said it will increase bed capacity and aim for four-hour target wait for Emergency Departments and that there is an emergency medicine consultant present in EDs on a 24-hour basis.
• If in government, the party will provide an additional 20 emergency ambulances and 200 extra staff.
• It said it will recruit 1,000 extra consultants over five years at a cost of €223m, and 4,000 more nurses over the next five years.

Sinn Féin:

• The party said it will introduce free GP care at a cost of €455m per year.
• It has also promised an additional 1,500 GPs for primary care.
• The party said it will hire 2,500 more nurses and midwives, and 1,000 more doctors and consultants.
• It also promises to open 1,500 more beds.

Fine Gael:

• The party has promised to invest an extra €5bn a year to resource the health service.
• It would provide 2,600 extra hospital beds and 4,500 community beds.
• It wants to recruit 3,840 primary care workers with recruitment of 1,000 by the end of the year.
• Fine Gael also wants to extend free GP care to all children under 18. (Free GP care is already provided to children under the age of six.)

Image source, RTÉ

"Nobody is pretending there is a simple overnight solution to this, but there are solutions.

"But they can only be delivered if you have the political will, if you make the right policy decisions," said Mary Lou McDonald

Image source, RTÉ

A tough question has been put to Leo Varadkar about a serious incident in which a homeless man was injured in Dublin

An industrial vehicle with a mechanical arm removed his tent from the banks of the Grand Canal in Dublin during a clean-up operation.

Mr Varakar was accused of politicising after he called on the Fianna Fáil Lord Mayor of Dublin to make a statement on the matter.

"My only regret is that incident happened and that poor man got injured in the way that he did," he said.

It seems Ireland is gripped by the debate!

"The state of the hike in rents demands that we intervene," says Mary Lou McDonald.

"That we not alone freeze rents, but we also have to cut them."

Micheál Martin says housing is the "burning issue of the campaign".

"We have to help young people to realise the prospect of home ownership."

Image source, RTE

"We have to build more affordable homes directly, in my view, on state land, and we have to build council houses as well on state land and more of them."

The Irish Independent newspaper is busy fact checking the debate., external

Image source, RTÉ

Leo Varadkar is being asked on housing.

"It is deeply wrong that so many people in our society cannot buy their own home at the moment," he said.

He argues that Fine Gael has done a lot to build social housing, that house prices are leveling off and that rent prices are dropping (by 0.1% according to recent a report).

Image source, RTÉ

Mary Lou McDonald: "We represent a large section of the population and I think it is undemocratic to set that aside."

Micheál Martin: "There are other parties who are not here tonight who could form a coalition government with Fianna Fáil."

Image source, RTE

"I personally believe that the critical mass will be there after this election to form a real alternative government to a Fine Gael led government."

Image source, RTÉ

Leo Varadkar said he believes that Fine Gael will emerge as the largest party after the general election.

When asked who he would go into government with, he said he would work with parties that they did in the past like Labour, Independents, Greens and Social Democrats.

As a last resort, he said, rather than have no government or a second election he would be happy to work with Fianna Fáil.

However, he said that he will not go into government with Sinn Féin.

Mary Lou McDonald says the public see Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil as almost identical parties who have had it their own way "for a century" and that people recognise Sinn Féin as the alternative.

The Sinn Féin leader says the best result is a government without those two parties.

Image source, RTÉ