Rockwell Students win Generation Euro Award

The Rockwell College Union is delighted to note the winning of the Generation Euro Award by three current Rockwell College students. We would like to extend our congratulations to both the students - Ronan, Peter, and Padraig - and their teacher Pat Egan for their fantastic work in what was a highly competitive field. The following text outlining the event has been kindly provided to us:

On Tuesday March 28th three Rockwell College students won the Generation Euro Award.  They did this by presenting and justifying their predictions for the ECB refinancing rate at the end of December 2023.  They presented to three senior economists in the Central Bank and were questioned about their research. In total their presentation took over 45 minutes. 

On arrival at the Central Bank, Ronan, Peter and Padraig were shown around the bank before their presentation.

‘We were very relaxed on the day and were confident that we had the hard work day as we practised our presentation on seven occasions in the previous week.  The presentations ranged from Zoom calls to past pupils such as Ben McDonald (2018) and Dylan Shaw (2019) and Fifth and Sixth Year classes.  One of the days there were 80 students accompanied by 5 teachers.  Each group gave us feedback.  That definitely stood to us’ said Peter Heaney.     Then having completed their presentation the students were brough to the archives before being treated to lunch while their two opponents presented in turn.

While the Generation Euro Competition had entries from all over Ireland the Rockwellians beat Clongowes Woods and St Muredach’s College of Ballina in the final.  The students were presented with their award by Sharon Donnery the Deputy Governor of the Irish Central Bank.  The students will now represent Ireland at the ECB in Frankfurt on May 16th.

Their teacher Pat Egan paid tribute to the fantastic teamwork exhibited by the students while also speaking of the unbelievable efforts put in by the students to make the top 20 in the First Round an MCQ competition in December, then to make the top 3 in the essay competition which took place in January and February which of course gave them the right to participate in the final.  They can all now look forward to Frankfurt in May where they will meet with Christine Lagarde at the ECB buildings along with the winners from the other 19 ECB states.