With just 12 days until polling day, Election 2020 has been a bland enough affair so far. Past the halfway point, the campaign now enters its third week.
Following the death of Séamus Mallon, some party leaders are attending his funeral in Armagh today.
Elsewhere, it is a pretty quiet day on the campaign trail with the party leaders travelling west this afternoon ahead of the Claire Byrne Live Leaders' debate in NUI Galway tonight.
It's four years since the last seven-way debate with Claire Byrne.
A lot has changed since that night in the University of Limerick. In its aftermath, the Social Democrats' Stephen Donnelly was seen as the star performer.
For a moment afterwards, great things were expected from the fledgling party.
But the Social Democrats went into the last election with three TDs and returned with the exact same number on the back of a 3% share of the vote.
Last week, Mr Donnelly found himself under all sorts of pressure on the Claire Byrne health debate.
In this election he is the Fianna Fáil health spokesperson and he did not have a good night.
Poll results after that debate suggest that Fianna Fáil is ahead.
For Mícheál Martin, the focus of tonight's debate will be on consolidating his party's lead in the polls.
Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar slightly shaded last week's two-way debate with Mr Martin on Virgin Media One.
But four opinion polls have suggested Fine Gael trail Fianna Fáil. Mr Varadkar conceded at the weekend that in hurling terms his party is three points behind at half-time, but he insisted it can be turned around.
If this debate marks the start of that second half, then Leo Varadkar will need to hurl well tonight. He will be facing attacks from the other six party leaders for his party's record in Government over nine years.
But he will enter this debate with some confidence after his performance in last week's TV debate.
Expect him to remind voters of the dangers of giving control of the public finances back to Fianna Fáil.
Nine years after Fine Gael took power, it is unclear if there is still a public appetite for such rhetoric.
The mud-slinging between the parties cranked up this morning when Fianna Fáil's Michael McGrath accused Fine Gael of playing dirty and running a "Trump style" operation fear in this campaign.
After the polls released at the weekend, two other clear trends have emerged.
They indicate an increase in support for Sinn Féin and a solid Green party vote that has held up since last year's local elections.
For years Gerry Adams' perceived weaknesses in the area of economics was seen as detrimental to Sinn Féin when it came to leaders' debates. Questions about the IRA were also a regular feature of debates involving Mr Adams.
Tonight Mary Lou McDonald will take part in her first major TV debate in a general election as Sinn Féin leader.
Following poor performances in the 2018 Presidential election, and the local and European elections last year, Sinn Féin got a boost from its second ever by-election win last November.
This is a huge night for her as recent polls indicate her party support has increased.
Sinn Féin has previously done well in opinion polls before a general election, only to see it support drop off on polling day. Can Ms McDonald buck that trend?
Tonight's debate is also important for Labour party leader Brendan Howlin. He performed well on the Prime Time panel on the opening night of the election campaign.
But the Sunday Business Post poll at the weekend suggested a two point drop in support to just 4%. This will be a worry for Labour.
Opinion polls point to a good election for the Green party so Eamon Ryan will be eager not to slip up in any way tonight.
The two smallest parties – the Social Democrats and Solidarity/People Before Profit – will also look to Roisín Shortall and Richard Boyd Barrett to make an impact and land a few blows on the larger parties tonight.
Ahead of that debate, it is timely to cast our minds back to the last Claire Byrne debate in 2016.
The first question came from audience member Pearse Duggan who asked: "Given the amount of promises that have been broken by governments in the past, what reason have we to be hopeful that we should believe anything that is promised during this election campaign?"
Four years on, a lot has changed. But in other ways, some characteristics of Irish elections endure from one ballot to the next. Some things do not change at all.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
