THE winners were announced in a flash of light and blue smoke. It was reminiscent of the Rose of Tralee as they stood on stage, dazed and with tears in their eyes, numbly accepting handshakes.
Except these three females were teenagers wearing school uniform, Doc Martens and braces. The Young Scientist of the Year Award was their prize.
The prize, a trophy and £1,000, went to Elsie O'Sullivan, Rowena Mooney and Patricia Lyle, from Scoil Mhuire, Portarlington, Co Laois, for a discovery about bees.
After the announcement the teenagers recovered from their shock to explain that their project involved a lot of work about the orphometry of bees.
Last night, the RDS in Dublin looked like it was playing host to a mini Cabinet meeting. No less than seven Ministers, junior and senior, turned up for the event. Almost 800 students took part this year for a competition celebrating its 32nd anniversary. And the man responsible for its conception was there once again, as he has been for the past three decades.
Father Tom Burke saw a similar competition in the US and approached Aer Lingus, which was very enthusiastic. "I wanted somewhere that students could display their talents and be affirmed for the work they had carried out."
Father Burke said that while computers and other modern technology has changed the nature and presentation of the entries, the standard has remained very high.
However, he would prefer if the competition stuck to the original rules and that an individual young scientist receive the award rather than a group. "I know the schools say it is easier to get a group to enter, but I think one person should get the top prize. I know it took the judges hours to sort it out today. They are supposed to be judging a scientist, but when they give it to a group they are giving it to a project," said Father Burke, who has been a judge since the beginning of the competition.
Proving that the competition moves with the times, the organisers provided computer terminals for various entrants so they could E mail each other at the RDS. They had entertained the idea of the Internet but decided that 800 teenagers with possible access to x rated material on the Internet was a headache they could do without.
During the week they also had guests on the RDS Internet, including a pilot. Entrants were invited to ask questions. "They were a lot more interested in his [age and whether or not he was single than in flying or a career as pilot," revealed an Aer Lingus employee.
Yesterday evening the prizes here announced by the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton. During his speech his message to Irish people [was to "take a risk". He said that [Irish people were cowardly when [it came to investment, particularly in the research and development area.
Irish people are afraid to take a risk. If someone sets up a business here and it fails they are looked upon as failures. Afterwards no one wants to do business with them and will say `look at that fellow, he went bust and I don't want anything to do with him'. Whereas in the US people would look and say he had failed but that he had probably learned from the mistakes and help him along. You have to take a risk and see that on the road to success there are some failures."
Mr Bruton said that the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise and Employment, Mr Pat Rabbitte, had given the first full briefing ever to a Cabinet on research and development last month.
"The Irish are among the best scientific brains in the world. We have the ability to be world heaters, but we need Irish firms to spend money in this area," said Mr Bruton.