Julie Anne Barnes
Dancer Michael Flatley was awarded honorary membership of University College Dublin's Law Society last night.
The former Chicago Golden Gloves Amateur Boxing champion, spoke at the society's meeting opposing the motion "That this House would ban boxing".
"Boxing gave me confidence. We wouldn't have a number of Irish heroes like Wayne McCullough and Michael Carruth without boxing. When you are in that boxing ring, the hardest, most difficult steps are the steps into that ring."
Opposing the motion Mr Simon Block, general secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control, which oversees British professional boxing, said:
"Boxing had been around for two or three hundred years. It instils values in people who would otherwise not have those values."
A number of UCD students also spoke at the debate.
Mr Flatley first came to prominence with his world-famous Riverdance performance during the interval of the 1994 European Song Contest.
He has been entered in the Guinness Book of Records, possessing the quickest feet in the world.
Mr Flatley created and performed in Lord of the Dance, which continues to tour around the world.
He is the highest-paid dancer, earning $1,600,000 a week, and has the highest insurance premium on his legs at $40,000,000.