Interrupting that debate to expose the hidden agendas

NEWTON'S OPTIC:WHILE EUROPE decides your future, we return you to the five-way leaders' debate still streaming live on the RTÉ website.

Micheál Martin: So I told the Chinese investors we Irish are very good at software. Our big round eyes let us see more of the screen, while our enormous noses are like built-in cursors, hovering just inside our field of view. We have the perfect faces for programming and we would never let anyone suffer a loss of face.

Pat Kenny:Was one of those investors the "No Lee Way" Brian Lenihan mentioned?

Enda Ke nny:I'd like to mention my meeting with Angela Merkel, where I emphasised the importance of telling myself and Pat Kenny apart. "How will I know while I'm watching?" she asked. "Well," I said, "one of us will be wooden, nervous and still not ready to take on Fianna Fáil, and the other will be me."

Eamon Gilmore:Enda loves banks, loves them I tell you. Before we came in here I saw him at a hole in the wall on the Stillorgan Road, touching the keypad and staring at the screen like some love-struck teenager. Is this what we need when mature politics is called for?

Gerry Adams:The time is not right for a visit from the bondholders. They should renounce their claim on Ireland, and we should burn the queen.

John Gormley:Even if different parties had been in government this debate would be exactly the same. Everyone's answers would be just as disjointed.

Pat Kenny:Can I ask you all to remember the rules of this debate because I've clearly forgotten them. Now, we'll take a rambling sob story from a member of the audience.

Audience member:I'm so worried about schools, hospitals and the part of the public sector where I might work, if I was a public sector worker, which I'm not saying I am. But really, it's the children I feel sorry for.

Pat Kenny:Would all of you care to ignore that?

Micheál Martin:Yes. My plan for political reform would see ministers appointed directly from the worlds of business, technology, finance and construction. That should cut out the middle man.

Enda Kenny:My plan for health reform would see the HSE restructured along the Dutch model, with nurses getting stoned on their tea breaks and the old being quietly killed when they get too expensive.

Eamon Gilmore:Let me tell you another thing about Enda Kenny. When he went to that cash machine he took out a fiver and he still hasn't spent it. That's a whole fiver taken out of the economy by Fine Gael, with no regard for the impact on growth.

Gerry Adams:I went to a hospital accident emergency unit and saw 30 Irish citizens lying on trolleys. But enough of my early successes.

John Gormley:Even if different parties are in the next government they'll be lying on the same trolley in the same strait-jacket in the same asylum where I'm asking to be recommitted.

Pat Kenny:I'll have to interrupt you there, lose control of the debate and let you interrupt each other.

Everyone:If I can just say! He has not answered! I'll take no lectures! Will you let me finish!