We all have our own opinion on who came out best in last night's final #GE16 election debate, but what do the stats say?
Data journalist Robbie Byrne got to work crunching the data.
WHO SPOKE THE MOST
Data from last night’s Leaders Debate shows that Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams came out on top with regard to actual minutes spoken.
Enda Kenny, who topped last week’s live debate, dropped to third place.
WHO MENTIONED WHO
In another shift from last week’s debate, Gerry Adams received the most mentions with Joan Burton leading the attacks, mentioning the Sinn Féin leader six times. (For clarity the thickness of the line indicates the volume of mentions).
THE BUZZWORD BINGO CHART
Finally, to some of those buzzwords.
For the second debate in a row, Enda Kenny mentioned the word ‘recovery’ the most.
Once again, Irish Water failed to garner a single mention, while the only person to bring up "1916" was... Gerry Adams.
Most noteworthy was the time given to mental health, which was treated to 13 mentions - unsurprising given its prominence over the past week.
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Google Searches:
Despite coming last place in terms of minutes spoken, the search term “Joan Burton” spiked on four occasions during the debate, with people taking to their devices to find out more about the Labour leader as she spoke on health care, taxation and housing.
Elsewhere, the search term “John McNulty” received a notable boost near the debate’s end – just as Enda Kenny confessed to his mistake.
But who made the smallest impression on Google’s web traffic? Well, that would be Micheál Martin, with Google designating just one ‘unit’ to the Fianna Fáil leader between 9-11pm.