Secondary school students from Athenry and Spiddal battled it out in this year’s final of the REMEDI schools debating competition at NUI Galway on Wednesday May 9th, 2007 The motion for this year’s final was: “This house proposes that the current situation, whereby most Irish hospitals do not facilitate cord blood collection is unnacceptabe." Jack Rawlings and Catherine O’Keefe, Transition Year students at Presentation Secondary School, Athenry argued in favour of the motion with Ciara Ni Gaibhain and John Gerard O'Gnimh, fifth year students at Coláiste Chroà Mhuire, Spiddal, arguing against. After an exilerating series of opening speeches, the teams had to defend their arguments yet again during a Question & Answer session with the competition judges. This year's panel included Prof Frank Barry (Scientific Director of REMEDI), Dr Veronica McCauley (NUIG Dept of Education) and Judy Murphy (Connacht Tribune). After a lengthy deliberation, the judges returned to announce Coláiste Chroà Mhuire, Spiddal this year's winners.Jack Rawlings and Catherine O’Keefe, Transition Year students at Presentation Secondary School, Athenry argued in favour of the motion with Ciara Ni Gaibhain and John Gerard O'Gnimh, fifth year students at Coláiste Chroà Mhuire, Spiddal, arguing against. After an exilerating series of opening speeches, the teams had to defend their arguments yet again during a Question & Answer session with the competition judges. This year's panel included Prof Frank Barry (Scientific Director of REMEDI), Dr Veronica McCauley (NUIG Dept of Education) and Judy Murphy (Connacht Tribune). After a lengthy deliberation, the judges returned to announce Coláiste Chroà Mhuire, Spiddal this year's winners.They took home a Galway Crystal trophy for their school and personal prizes of video iPODs. Their opponents from Presentation Secondary School, Athenry, took home a crysal trophy for their school and personal prizes of iPOD nanos. A total of eight teams from schools across the city and county participated in this year’s competition, which is part of the Galway Region Outreach (GRO) programme, facilitated jointly by REMEDI and the National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Sciences (NCBES) at NUI Galway. The GRO programme is an innovative outreach programme aimed at secondary schools in the region. It promotes science, engineering and technology to students and encourages them to consider a career in these fields. The aim of the competition is to stimulate discussion among young people on the ethical and societal issues raised by developments in biomedical sciences.