RTE has paid compensation to a Tallaght family which was unhappy with the outcome of a Late Late Show competition with a first prize of a £35,000 trip to the Olympics.
The amicable settlement was announced yesterday eight weeks after the show on May 26th when the King family lost the prize, even though they answered the questions correctly.
The one-off Chocolympics Quiz was held between two families, and each was asked five questions by presenter Pat Kenny. Some involved sport and some related to chocolate products, as the sponsor was Cadbury.
After the show many viewers complained at the way RTE had run the competition, in which Mr Liam King and his wife, Celine, received the second prize of a £2,000 holiday voucher.
Yesterday both sides agreed to keep confidential the amount paid in compensation.
The confusion is believed to have happened over a rule made in rehearsals that only one person, the husband, would answer the questions and give only one answer.
In the live broadcast the first question about the colour of a chocolate wrapper went to the other family. When the man answered the question as purple, his wife said he had meant yellow, and that correct answer was accepted.
Both families answered all other questions correctly, and the quiz went to a tie-break, which the other family won.
Yesterday Mr King told The Irish Times that he was inundated with phone calls after the programme.
At first, he did not do anything, but people kept ringing and pointed to the difference in the prizes. It amazed him how many people got annoyed about it.
The newspapers then took an interest, and in the end his solicitor acted as an intermediary with RTE.
"Everything has eventually been settled. I don't know that `happy' is the word, but we are well pleased with the result of the amicable agreement," he said.
He was bound to confidentiality, he said, but all he could say was that it was a reasonable amount, bearing in mind what was advertised as the first prize. Part of the settlement was the £2,000 holiday voucher.
Mr King stressed that the Joyces were a great family.
"I do hope the Joyces were not offended in any way by the way things transpired. We weren't going against them. Our argument was with the way it was run," he said.
Mr King said with such a large prize at stake there should have been an adjudicator present, and that would have solved everything. E said it had arrived at an amicable settlement with the King family. who were unhappy with the outcome of the Chocolympics Quiz.
RTE had made a payment to the King family to compensate for their disappointment at not winning the first prize of a family trip to the Olympics.
Mr Colm O'Callaghan, producer of The Late Late Show, said: "The bottom line here is that Mr King and his family were upset. They felt we'd treated them unfairly. That's not how we want our competition participants to feel, particularly participants as sporting and co-operating as the King family."