'Millionaire' contestant seeks second chance

Another disgruntled Who Wants to Be A Millionaire contestant is demanding that he be given another go.

Mr Declan O'Malley, from Drumcondra in Dublin, appeared on the hit quiz show on September 30th.

"I flew up to £16,000," he told The Irish Times. At that point he was confronted with the following conundrum: "A brown statue of an Irish writer and statesman stands in front of Trinity College in Dublin. Is it a) Oliver St John Gogarty, b) Thomas Moore, c) Thomas Davis or d) Sir Edmund Burke?"

Mr O'Malley said he was "almost certain" the answer was Sir Edmund Burke but to be certain he decided to phone friend, Mr Denis Ronan.

"He knows a lot about history and culture."

Mr Ronan told him he thought the answer was Thomas Davis.

"That really threw me so I decided to go 50/50, and they took away two answers. But the two that were left were Thomas Davis and Sir Edmund Burke. If I got the wrong answer I was going to drop down to £1,000. I had no option but to pull out," he said.

His complaint is that both Davis and Burke were potentially correct answers. While a bronze statue of Burke stands inside the railings in front of Trinity College, across the road, next to the taxi rank in Dame Street - also in front of Trinity College - stands in bronze, a statue of the Irish writer and statesman, Thomas Davis.

The host of the programme, Gay Byrne, told Mr O'Malley after he decided to stick on £16,000 that had he answered Sir Edmund Burke he would have won £32,000.

Mr O'Malley will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of Mr Shane Doherty, the contestant who said the answer to the question, "Where in the human body is the lunula located?", was the in heart.

The show's producers, Tyrone Productions insisted throughout the controversy that the lunula was the in the fingernail. However, they eventually bowed to the wisdom of the medical profession, which agreed the lunula was in the heart and Mr Doherty was allowed back on the programme.

Mr O'Malley has engaged a solicitor, Mr Kiaran Roe, who has written to Tyrone Productions. Having watched a video of the programme and examined the rules of the contest, Mr Roe says it is not explicitly stated that there will only be one right answer for each question.

He adds, however: "The way the programme is run is that there should only be one correct answer for each question. It on that understanding that contestants enter. Clearly in this case there were two correct answers."

Mr O'Malley stressed that he was not looking for compensation "But I do demand that I be reinstated at the £16,000 point with two lifelines." If the Thomas Davis option was not there he would have answered Sir Edmund Burke and not have wasted two lifelines, he says.

Ms Joan Egan, managing editor at Tyrone Productions, said the matter was in the hands of the company's solicitors.