New year isn't just for making resolutions - you can also debate them, as almost 1,000 students have been demonstrating in UCD over the past week.
Some 31 countries are represented in the world universities debating championship, which is being hosted this year by the college's Literary and Historical Society.
At a time when most sane people were still in bed, Belfield's concrete corridors were echoing from early yesterday with the sound of young debaters disputing, dissecting and even drawing the odd laugh. Thirty-two teams had made it to the "octo-finals" of the competition, having survived nine preliminary rounds held over the previous days. Two of them came from UCC Philosophical (Phil) Society, the winner in 1986.
Armed with nothing more than a hand-timer and an ability to think on their feet, the debaters displayed mastery of a variety of topics of which they had been informed just 15 minutes earlier. Those who regard student debaters as politicians-in-training would have their prejudices confirmed by this event. Teams proposing a motion are referred to as "the government"; those on the other side of the argument are "the opposition".
The lead speaker for the proposition is the "prime minister" and delivers his or her seven-minute speech from a despatch box that Tony Blair might miss the next time he's at question time.
UCC Phil A's prime minister was Stephen Coates, who argued forcefully that international law should recognise the right of each state to unilaterally undertake armed humanitarian intervention. Team-mate Derek Lande justified such intervention with the claim that sovereignty rests with the people, not the state.
UCC Phil A made it through to the quarter-finals along with teams from Cambridge and Yale, among others. The society's B team, comprising Tony Murphy and Diarmuid Early, also made it through. There was no luck for the Irish, however, in the quarter-finals held later in the day. Both UCC teams were knocked out, leaving the eight semi-finalists to be disputed today by teams from Yale (two teams), Inner Temple (London), Oxford, Sydney, Chicago, Oregon and Hart House (Canada).
