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LAST UPDATE | 15 May 2022
Daragh Brophy reports from Turin, Italy:
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR Zelensky has said his country will host the Eurovision next year after folk-rap group Kalush Orchestra romped home as winners of the contest in Turin.
The group, who as men of fighting age had to be given special dispensation to leave the country for the event, had long been considered favourites to claim the top prize. Speaking after their victory, they confirmed they had been told they must return home tomorrow.
Their song Stefania – a plaintive mix of hip-hop and traditional music – had lagged behind the UK, Sweden and Spain after the jury votes were awarded at the Pala Alpitour arena.
However as the televotes from across Europe (and Australia) were read out it soon became apparent that the Ukrainians would emerge as winners.
Eurovision voting is split 50:50 between the national juries – who cast their votes on Friday night following the second dress rehearsal – and viewers, who had their say during a 15 minute voting window after the final performance of the Grand Final.
The awarding of 439 points from the public vote put Ukraine out of reach of the other competitors. Sam Ryder clinched second place for the UK – the country’s highest placing in the contest since 1998, with Spain and Sweden close behind.
In the usual course of events, whoever wins the Eurovision also wins the right to stage the contest the following year.
In his statement last night congratulating the Kalush Orchestra, President Zelensky said his country would host the contest – adding: ”We will do our best to one day host the participants and guests of Eurovision in Ukrainian Mariupol. Free, peaceful, rebuilt!”
A statement from the contest’s European Broadcasting Union supervisor Martin Österdahl was less definitive – while noting that his organisation would now begin planning for next year’s contest with Ukrainian broadcaster UA:PBC, he added:
“Obviously, there are unique challenges involved.”
However, as in any other year, we look forward to discussing all the requirements and responsibilities involved in hosting the competition with UA:PBC and all other stakeholders to ensure we have the most suitable setup for the 67th Eurovision Song Contest.
Speaking to The Journal before the contest Director General of the EBU Noel Curran wouldn’t be drawn on what might happen if Ukraine won but stressed that a similar process took place every year.
We have milestones of criteria that have to be met by anyone in terms of where it’s going to be – venue, financing, safety – across all of these issues.
While it’s arguably a little early to predict what might happen next year, the rules around Australia’s particulation in the song contest may provide a guide to organisers on a way forward: mostly due to the time difference, Australia wouldn’t be allowed to host the contest in the event that it won the Eurovision and would instead be asked to nominate a country in Europe as co-host.
Given the positive diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the UK at the moment – not to mention that the UK finished in second place in last night’s contest – it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that we could see the Eurovision staged there next year.
At a post-show press conference Ukrainian frontman Oleh Psiuk said his country would be happy to host Eurovision next year in a “happy and integrated Ukraine”.
Asked about his plans for the future and whether he would be joining the war effort after heading home, Psiuk said he wasn’t sure what lay ahead “because I’ve never won the Eurovision Song Contest before” – adding that like all Ukrainians he was ready to fight.
There had been speculation, earlier in the night, that the group might end up being disqualified from the contest due a rule banning any political statements during the broadcast.
“Help Ukraine, help Mariupol, help Azovstal now,” Psiuk had exhorted to the arena crowd and an estimated live TV audience of up to 200 million at the close of their performance.
The Ukrainian government remains locked in talks with Russia to secure safe passage for 38 badly wounded fighters from the Azovstal steel plant in the city. A further 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers are trapped in tunnels beneath the steel works.
Speaking at the press conference, Psiuk said he’d made the comments in the hope of raising awareness of the fighters’ plight. He was happy to take the risk of being disqualified from the contest if it meant he could help, he added.
Earlier in the night, a spokesperson for Eurovision confirmed that organisers were regarding the comments as humanitarian rather than political.
Several other performers expressed their solidarity with Ukraine during the contest – some making short statements on stage. The marathon show began with choruses of John Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance echoing around the arena.
Ukrainian flags and t-shirts have been popular among non-Ukrainian fans around the song contest venue in recent days.
Yellow wolf-themed hats celebrating Norway’s novelty entry Subwoolfer have also been a hit among the Eurovision faithful in Turin this week.
Their song, which has become a viral hit, didn’t feature in the shake-up for the top prize last night – finishing in the number 10 slot.
Serbia’s earworm entry – featuring a catchy handclap chorus and a performance that involved handwashing, white towels and dancing monks – finished in fifth place.
Moldova’s step-dancing folk stomper – another big hit with the fans in Turin this week – had a creditable top ten finish coming in seventh, just behind Italy.
So this was the moment it became clear in the press room Ukraine would be the winners... pic.twitter.com/mt6SDmJoUw
— Daragh Brophy (@DaraghBroph) May 15, 2022
Juries out
“Irregular voting patterns were uncovered” in the results of six national juries after Wednesday night’s dress rehearsal for the contest’s second semi-final the following night, the EBU announced in a statement as voting took place during last night’s show.
The results from those juries weren’t used for either show, with organisers instead using a fallback system to calculate a substitute aggregated result for the performances in the two events based on results of other countries with similar voting records.
“The EBU takes any suspected attempts to manipulate the voting at the Eurovision Song Contest extremely seriously and has the right to remove such votes in accordance with the Official Voting Instructions, irrespective of whether or not such votes are likely to influence the results and/or outcome of the voting,” the statement added.
Ireland’s Brooke Scullion exited this year’s Eurovision at the semi-final stage on Thursday night. A full breakdown of the results from that contest has since been released by organisers and shows she finished five spots out of the qualifying places – 15th out of 18 competitors on the night.
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90,000 on the social housing waiting list, of which 50,000 non-nationals.
That’s more than 55% of waiting list (non-nationals account for 13% of population).
Why?
Coz they move here for our generous Social Welfare system
how about what % have criminal records, what % have more than 5 kids, what % have never worked a day in their lives, what % have been nasty neighbours in their previous social housing.
Yes good news for non-EUers and other queue jumpers etc anxiously glued to their TV’s listening to news of the soft touch Ireland’s budget of what they can expect when they scam into Ireland. Free council house, more pay for each churn-out-child.
IRISH QUEING FOR 7YRS LOSE OUT TO IMMIGRANTS
From Nov 09 to March 2010, out of 19 council houses, allocated by Tralee council 11 went to immigrants. Many Irish people are on the housing waiting list, some waiting for 7yrs, and the houses are going to foreigners.
Kerryman 14/4/10
OVER HALF ON HOUSING LIST ARE FOREIGN
MORE than half of the applicants for council homes in north Dublin are from abroad, new figures show.
It is the first time that there have been more foreign than Irish people on Fingal’s social housing list.
“For the first time, more than half those on the waiting list for social housing in Fingal County Council are non-Irish nationals. A third are from outside the EU,” Fine Gael’s Kieran Dennison said.
http://www.herald.ie/news/over-half-on-housing-list-are-foreign-27973856.html
Because they are the new working class.
hmm queried, was it answered yet? thats shocking in all fairness.
Great, 2.2bn to be spent on “social” housing for anti-social people…
Ah, the great Divide and Conquer debate with prejudice and disdain for the less well off. We’ve been expecting you, Come on in.
Any couple on a combined income of less than 60k a year in Dublin city are looking at Social housing.
Any individual on less than 50k a year is not going to afford a house out of a high social housing density area.
The hubris of the past still lives but no one wants to face up to the numbers. Being poor is as cheap as ever but being middle class like we thought it was in the 90s and 00′s is not anymore and given the overwhelming % of people who live in households with less than 70k per annum, does the middle class exist anymore liked we imagined it.
tis true to an extent, over-weaning SW makes people irresponsible, have a look at the SW brats homes, places are in sh*t. Left to working class employed to clean their areas up while being abused for doing so. Some SW ok, the amount we have simply makes people spoilt and less responsible, a culture of expecting everything and for everything to be done for them.
My post above is very much Carrie from Sex and the City monologue. It was on in the background and I got it like 2nd hand smoke.
More houses for local authority to have to maintain. higher Lpt for private houses
Sean Dunne is on the way back home
Can’t wait to hear what the Socialists and the Anti Austerity Alliance et al have to say about this.
What do you expect them to say?
Helping people get a home when they can’t provide one for themselves is a bad thing ?
Well for one AAA are going to have to undergo a name change because austerity is now dead with this budget. My larger point is that I can’t wait for leftist groups to try and pick this budget apart they’ll find something to complain about even now their austerity boogeyman is no more.
Austerity is not dead, you really need to think before you type.
YAY! Austerity is over. Let’s all party. The Good times are back., Woohoo.
Darryl, €5 here and 0.5% there does not even come close to starting to erase the enormous drop in income and living standards people have endured as a result of years of successive cuts.
The pints of Irish Water and extortionate mortgages are on me.
Looking at that budget and the growth forecasts austerity seems as dead as the dodo to me. This government have done a tremendous job turning it around.
Darryl they followed the path laid out by FF, and I’d wait for the final details before clapping them on the back.The sting is normally delivered by a junior minister when no one is listening.
What a wonderful rose tinted world you must live in, Darryl.
Bob I’m dealing with facts growth forecasts are up across the board, unemployment is down across the board, income tax returns higher than they’ve been in years, more new cars being sold year on year an finally with this budget the initial easing of austerity measures. These are facts Bob.
Cant help but wonder will they make a b***s of this & we will end up once again with more ghost estates.
We running at a shortage of about 20k houses a year, the building boom was 7 years ago. Long time with hardly any building.
If we get up to 40k houses a year then we might be having a few too many built.
Ghost estates are mostly gone in Leinster and Munster at this stage.
Come to Clare seanie, plenty still left here! (Not all classified as ghost but still huge under occupancy with many homeless people being shipped to Limerick for emergency accommodation)
have your say