Irish song and tele-vote both sink without trace

Telecom Eireann is investigating a technical fault that led to the collapse of the electronic televoting system for the Eurovision Song Contest. A standby "human" jury took over when the system went down shortly after the voting started.

The competition, which took place in Jerusalem, was won by Sweden with the song Take Me to Your Heaven sung by Charlotte Neilsson. Ireland had one of its lowest scores in the history of the contest, receiving just 18 points for When You Need Me, sung by the Mullan sisters, Bronagh and Karen, from Belfast.

Tele-voting - when members of the public phone in and vote for their favourite song - was introduced two years ago. An RTE spokeswoman said a standby jury, which is always on hand, took over once the fault was detected. Two senior Telecom personnel were overseeing the operation at RTE when the system failed.

A Telecom Eireann spokes- woman said last night that the "mechanism" had collapsed. "From what we understand, very few people at all registered their vote," she said, adding that as soon as the fault was detected, RTE was notified and switched to the standby jury.

She said the system had been working perfectly during practice sessions and it was only "very late in the day" that the problem arose. Telecom would not be able to tell what the fault was until a full investigation was carried out but "we regret that this failure happened".

Under the electronic system, voters ring the number of the song they favour. The number ends with a different digit for each song.

One woman who wanted to vote for Sweden said she rang the number for the Swedish entry, song 15. "I got a voicemail answer saying `this line is engaged. We can't take your vote. Please try again'. Every time I rang, and I rang for 15 minutes, I got the same message. I hope Telecom isn't charging us for the calls."

Ireland's disappointed entrants, who had been expected to fare much better, cancelled their scheduled photocall at Dublin airport on their return yesterday evening.

The sisters had received a letter from the President, Mrs McAleese, wishing them the best of luck for their performance.

Usually the Irish entry is in the top five and Ireland holds the record for most wins. Lithuania was the first jury to vote and gave Ireland the maximum score of 12 points, but it was downhill after that. There were 23 entries and the millennium event will come from Sweden next year.