Leaders' debate turned into a political football by election players

The smaller parties took full advantage of last night's seven-leader leaders' debate format with Richard Boyd Barrett – representing the Anti-Austerity Alliance and People Before Profit appearing to get the upper hand.

Barrett received several rounds of applause as he attacked the Government’s record on health, employment and social housing in the RTE One TV showpiece.

Social Democrats representative Stephen Donnelly and Renua Ireland leader Lucinda Creighton succeeded in outlining their policy differences with larger parties.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Joan Burton focused on the Government's stabilising record and both strongly attacked the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin's previous terms in government.

But Mr Kenny stayed back from the fray during the debate while Ms Burton was on the defensive several times.

Micheál Martin and Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams attacked each other and also the Government's record on health and housing in particular.

But overall, there was no clear winner or serious mistakes as the campaign continues with less than a fortnight to go to polling day.

On health,  Mr Martin – a former health minister – faced tough questions on his time in office.

He defended his party’s record in health and said that by "any metric" more patients were being treated more successfully when Fianna Fáil was in government and that James Reilly had caused chaos in the health service.

He said Fine Gael had promised a whole load of things on health five years ago which it did not deliver.

Mr Kenny described his claim as rubbish and countered that in 2002, as health minister, Mr Martin promised to abolish waiting lists permanently.

Both Mr Boyd-Barrett and Mr Donnelly called for a NHS system for Ireland while Ms Creighton said the way to deal with health is to manage the health service by ridding it of the layers of bureaucracy and middle management.