At the initiative of the European Parliament Office in Ireland, students of Maynooth University Department of Law took part in an event on 14 October 2015 in the Boardroom of the Phoenix Building at Maynooth University, to publicise the 2015 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and to promote debate on the individual human rights issues to which the prize relates.
This was the first time that Maynooth University students had taken part in such a debate.
As part of the event, short presentations were made on each of the initial list of nominees who had been submitted to the Parliament by political groups or 40 MEPS, outlining the human rights issues involved and arguing why the Sakharov Prize should be given to “their” nominee.
At the end of the six presentations, there was the opportunity for the audience to ask the presenters questions about their nominees. After this, the audience was then asked to vote on which of the nominees to recommend for the 2015 Sakharov Prize. The results were as follows:
| Nominee(s) | Votes |
| Whistle-blowers; Edward Snowden, Antoine Deltour and Stéphanie Gibaud | 8 |
| Nadiya Savchenko | 3 |
| Raif Badawi | 3 |
| Edna Adan Ismail | 2 |
| Political Prisoners in Venezuela as well as the democratic opposition in Venezuela, embodied by the Mesa de la Unidad Democrática | 2 |
| Boris Nemtsov | 2 |
The Whistle-blowers were thus nominated to be the 2015 winner of the vote by the Maynooth University students, with Nadiya Savchenko and Raif Badawi as the runners-up.
The organisers of the debate were Dr Noelle Higgins of Maynooth University Department of Law, Francis Jacobs of the European Parliament Information Office in Ireland, and ELSA Maynooth.
At the end of the debate, Harry O'Connor of the European Parliament Information Office spoke about the handling of human rights issues within the European Parliament and about Andrei Sakharov, and the purpose of the European Parliament prize named after him. He finished by outlining the follow-up that would be given to the event, and, in particular, transmission of the report to Irish and other MEPs, notably in the Human Rights Subcommittee, as well as to the European Parliament Human Rights Unit.
On Monday, 19 October 2015, three finalists were chosen by the European Parliament Office in Ireland, based on the student debate events at Maynooth University, Trinity College Dublin, Univeristy College Cork, and University College Dublin: Raif Badawi, the Venezuelan Opposition, and Boris Nemtsov.
Five students from Maynooth University Department of Law will now have the opportunity of travelling to Strasbourg with the European Parliament Office in Ireland next month to visit the human rights institutions.
