Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue yesterday congratulated Brian Kennedy on winning the Eurovision Song Contest - despite the singer having come 10th in Saturday night's final.
In a statement posted on his department's website yesterday afternoon, Mr O'Donoghue congratulated Kennedy on his "excellent achievement" in bringing Ireland's record number of Eurovision wins to eight. "I wish to extend my congratulations to Brian on his marvellous win for Ireland at the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens tonight. He gave a wonderful performance and in the process extended Ireland's record number of Eurovision wins to eight," the statement said.
He urged the entire nation to share in his excitement, saying: "Everyone should be very proud of this excellent achievement."
The truth, that Finnish rock group Lordi were the real winners of the contest, had not been kept from the Minister, nor was he attempting to prompt a recount, his department said yesterday.
The statement had been drafted on Saturday before the contest took place. It had been posted in error on the department's website at 2.30pm yesterday and was removed at 3pm after listeners to NewsTalk 106 rang the Seán Moncrieff programme to report the error. "This is just a case of human error. The release was drawn up on Saturday because we really did think we had a good chance of winning," a spokeswoman for the department said.
