A team from St. Joseph's Secondary School, Castlebar – Eleanor Noone, Anna Murray and Lindsay Maughan – yesterday won the Connaught/Ulster Final of this year's Forum on Europe public speaking competition. The tense and closely fought Final took place in the Abbey Hotel, Roscommon Town.

The others teams in the Final were from the Sacred Heart School, Westport, Portumna Community School and Coláiste Cholmcille, Ballyshannon, Co Donegal. Their win qualifies St. Joseph's for the National Final to be held in Dublin on 1st April. Their teacher Marianne Jordan coached the team.

The theme of the afternoon's debate was the EU's draft Constitutional Treaty, drawn up last year by the Convention of the Future of Europe, which was a sort of temporary EU Assembly, now wound up.

The teams were asked to argue for or against whether the changes put forward in the draft Treaty in the way the EU does its business would make the EU more effective and be without downside effects.

The St. Joseph's team argued for. St. Joseph's Anna Murray was sceptical about the likelihood of any sizeable migration to Ireland of workers from the accession countries. 'The economies of the new Member States will improve strongly in the Single Market, creating employment for their peoples at home, so removing the need for emigration", insisted Anna.

"There will be some migration into Ireland", Anna added "but this will be a plus, bringing diversity. The reality is that the old Member States have ageing populations and will actually need younger immigrants from the new countries!".

Mr. Jerry Sheehan, chair of the adjudicating panel, a member of the Association of Former EU Officials, praised the level of the day's debate.

"I especially commend you all for the excellent use to which put both the video on the Convention produced by the Forum and the Forum's summary of the draft Constitutional Treaty", said Mr. Sheehan. The other adjudicators were Richard Holland, Deputy Secretary-General of the Forum on Europe and Ms. Anya Grealy, of Roscommon Chamber of Commerce and owner of the Abbey Hotel.

The video stars award winning television presenter Hector Ó hEochagáin of RTE’s Only Fools Buy Horses programme and the TG4 travel series Amú Amigos. Hector is also involved in the competition: the students were invited to write a “Dear Hector…” letter to him, and the best individual letters qualified their classes for the regional debating finals.

The winners of the National Final will get a trip to the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg.