“The young women involved are exceptional people, they are independent obviously, and it would be a bit silly to expect that they wouldn’t have opinions, controversial or otherwise, on different things,”

It was a case of third time lucky for the newly crowned Rose of Tralee Maggie McEldowney, and she wasn’t going to let anything derail her moment in the sun.

Health Minister Simon Harris has said a citizen’s assembly is still the way forward on the abortion debate, even as a call to repeal the Eighth Amendment was made during a live broadcast of the Rose of Tralee competition.

“I think it’s time to give women a say over their reproductive rights.”

It was an eventful evening in the Dome but it was the forthright views of the Sydney Rose and a protest by a man dressed as a priest that generated the most buzz during the opening night of the Rose of Tralee.