How it Happened: Three Presidential Candidates Face Off in first TV Debate in Race for Áras - 30/09/2025

The first televised debate of the presidential campaign was shown on Virgin Media One on Monday night, hosted by Kieran Cuddihy and featuring the three candidates – Independent Catherine Connolly, Fine Gael’s Heather Humphreys and Fianna Fáil’s Jim Gavin.The 60-minute programme began with opening statements from the three candidates.It was followed by questions on neutrality before moving on to the issue of the Irish flags being erected in certain communities. That led to a debate about immigration.The topic raised the first real clash on the topic of direct provision and asylum seekers.Political Correspondent Sean Defoe joined us on The Agenda this morning to tell us more about how it all went down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.