In Ireland, the public have been giving their opinions on local and national radio to Ireland's performance on Eurovision in Kyiv.
The general feeling of the Irish audience is of saddness that Ireland didn't get through the semi final. Even though alot of people think that Donna & Joe performed exceptionally well, they thought that they lacked the experience of professional singers and felt that alot political voting was noticed.
Even though unofficial record viewing figures were recorded for the semi final, estimated at 614,000 for RTÉ's secondary television channel RTÉ TWO, alot of people felt that “You're a star”, the format of selection for the Irish entry, needed to be scrapped, because contestants were amateurs.
“You're a star”, a representative of RTÉ said, “was an enormous success for RTÉ”, receiving on average a 40% share of the Irish audience each week.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio, Shay Healy, who wrote “What's another year?”, said that Ireland was “trying too hard to write a winning Eurovision song.”
However, Julian Vignoles, the head of the Irish delegation, said that there was“a mix of talent this year” and that “alot of investments were put into this year's Eurovision entry”.
Also opinions were expressed about the reality of “Eastern block voting” or “Neighbour country voting” with countries voting for each another. Opinions suggest that the EBU changes its rules on Televoting. It was suggested that juries should award points 1 to 10, and the result of the televote awarding the 12 points only. Alot of people liked that idea and would favour that change.
Ireland finished 14th in this years semi-final, they need to qualify for the Eurovision Song Contest Final in 2006.
Tonight on RTÉ 1 at 22:30 (local time), the topical programme “Questions & answers” discusses Irelands recent Eurovision failure and what should be done next?
