London Calling! Offaly's Ciara to take part in Great Agri Food Debate in UK capital

Offaly student Ciara Leonard is preparing to represent the South East Technological University (SETU) in this year's Great Agri Food Debate final which takes place in London next week.

Ciara, from Tullamore, is a third year student in a BSc in Agriculture course. She is part of the SETU team hoping to return from the UK capital with the gold medal for the third year running.

The debate, which is sponsored by Dawn Meats and McDonalds, takes place in the prestigious Butchers Hall in London on Tuesday next (March 28) and sees SETU facing off against University College Cork.

The chosen topic this year is, "The solution to negative consumer perceptions of red meat is more honest communication", with SETU opposing the motion.

Ciara's teammates include Patrick Shanahan from Limerick who is the team captain and a final year Agricultural Science student, Owen Maleady from Westmeath who is a final year Land Management student, Aoife Meagher from Tipperary who is in final year Food Science and Innovation and Maud O’Callaghan from Waterford and Cormac Loughran from Meath who are in 3rd year of the BSc in Agriculture course.

Team captain Patrick said that “this is a great opportunity to represent the university in such a high profile event, and we are all really looking forward to it”.

SETU defeated Aberystwyth University of Wales already this year, while proposing the motion that: "The long-term profitable future of livestock production in Ireland and the UK is a grass-based diet and therefore to reduce livestock numbers to counter climate change is to ignore scientific facts".

Owen Maleady was awarded Best Speaker in what was a very lively debate.

For their part, UCC defeated Dundalk IT on their way to the final.