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RTÉ HAS REQUESTED a breakdown of the public vote element of Saturday night’s Eurovision final.
The move comes after Spain’s public broadcaster RTVE called on Eurovision organisers the European Broadcasting Union to investigate the Spanish televote, after the country gave its highest score to Israeli act Yuval Raphael.
Earlier today a number of Opposition TDs called on RTÉ to request an audit of the viewer votes for Israel.
VRT, the Flemish public broadcaster that oversaw Belgium’s entry this year, also publicly raised concerns over the voting process.
It comes after both Belgium and Spain’s televoters awarded Israel 12 points, while the juries gave the country zero points.
Viewers in Ireland awarded ten points to Israel and their 12 points to Poland. Televoters in Ireland also awarded Israel ten points last year. The Irish professional jury awarded seven points to Israel, giving higher marks to contest winners Austria, followed by the Netherlands and France.
RTÉ said this evening it had “requested a breakdown in voting numbers from the EBU and its voting partner Once”.
In a statement yesterday, director of the Eurovision Song Contest Martin Green said the organisation was taking concerns seriously and remained in constant contact with participating broadcasters.
“We can confirm that we have been in touch with several broadcasters since Saturday’s Grand Final regarding voting in the competition,” Green said.
“Now the event has concluded we will have a broad discussion with participating broadcasters, to reflect and obtain feedback on all aspects of this year’s event as part of our planning process for the 70th Eurovision Song Contest next year.
“It is important to emphasise that the voting operation for the Eurovision Song Contest is the most advanced in the world and each country’s result is checked and verified by a huge team of people to exclude any suspicious or irregular voting patterns.
“An independent compliance monitor reviews both jury and public vote data to ensure we have a valid result.
“Our voting partner Once has confirmed that a valid vote was recorded in all countries participating in this year’s Grand Final and in the Rest of the World.”
The RTÉ spokesperson said the broadcaster looked forward to participating in the discussions and review outlined in Green’s statement.
RTVE, the Spanish broadcaster, received 142,688 votes during Saturday night’s Eurovision final, according to an initial report requested from the EBU.
On the night of the final, the broadcaster received 7,283 phone calls, 23,840 text messages, and 111,565 online votes.
Voting in Eurovision can be done through the official app (with a limit of 20 votes per person, each costing €0.99), as well as via telephone and SMS.
During the first semi-final on Tuesday (in which Israel did not compete), RTVE received just 774 phone calls, 2,377 text messages, and 11,310 online votes.
A spokesperson for VRT, the Flemish broadcaster, said:
“We have no indication that the counting of the televotes wasn’t carried out correctly, but we are asking for complete transparency on the part of the EBU.
“The question is above all whether the current system guarantees a fair reflection of the opinion of viewers and listeners”.
Earlier today, TDs from Labour, Social Democrats, Independent Ireland, Aontú and People Before Profit all backed calls for RTÉ to request an audit of votes.
TDs from these parties all also called for Israel to be excluded from next year’s competition if it is still engaged in its war against Hamas in the Gaza strip.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said it is time that Ireland boycotts the competition and argued that Israel’s involvement in it is about the “normalisation of a genocidal State”.
He said from Israel’s point of view, the song contest has “everything to do with politics”.
“And by Ireland participating, we are legitimising this normalisation effort,” Murphy said.
He added that Israel should be “kicked out” of the competition.
“That’s what happened in terms of Russia… But if they won’t be, well, then the idea that we should be continuing to participate in it doesn’t make any sense.”
Asked if RTÉ should do an audit of the public vote on Saturday’s final, Murphy said yes.
“I didn’t watch it. I probably wouldn’t watch it anyway, but I would have boycotted it. And I’m kind of aware that there’s, like, suspiciously high votes for Israel in a range of countries. So yes,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of the Social Democrats, Rory Hearne said his party’s position is that Israel should not be allowed to participate in the competition, similar to Russia.
“It’s committing war crimes, it’s [committing] genocide.
“So it shouldn’t be allowed to participate. So it shouldn’t be Ireland that shouldn’t have to be in it, it should be Israel,” he said.
Hearne added that it is “important” for RTÉ to now follow Spain’s public broadcaster and request that the EBU do an audit of the public votes.
Labour TD George Lawlor said that it would be “tokenistic” for Ireland to boycott next year’s competition and that it would only be a “small measure”.
However, he said, ultimately, Israel does need to be isolated by the international community, similar to how South Africa was during its regime of apartheid.
“I think that’s the same road that we should go in relation Israel, because it’s happening in plain sight, because nobody can say we haven’t seen it… And the inaction by the international community is horrendous. So if that needs to be done, that needs to be done,” he said.
Lawlor said the result on Saturday night was “very strange”, and if an audit can be done of the televote, then it should be.
Speaking about Gaza earlier on the plinth of Leinster House today, Lawlor said:
“Gaza is very much in our thoughts and minds, where we have, on a daily basis, genocide in plain sight, and the time for fine words and talk is absolutely over.”
Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn said:
“By this time next year, I hope we don’t have to have this conversation again about who’s in Eurovision… As the Holy Father said on Sunday, let’s have a ceasefire.”
Asked if RTÉ should follow Spain’s lead and request an audit of the televote, O’Flynn responded:
“I thought, actually, Spanish TV worked incredibly well, I have to say. My husband is Spanish, so we have Spanish television on all the time… But Spanish TV handled it very, very well. They didn’t promote Israel in any way… And I think there is perhaps a heavier hand that RTÉ could have taken to reflect our nation’s views and the general public’s views on Gaza and Israel.”
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said he believes Israel should not be allowed to compete in the Eurovision given its actions in Gaza.
“It is unbelievable to think that we have Western countries sitting idly by in terms of the embargo of food into that area when tens of thousands of people are currently in serious danger of starvation there. And I do think that we as a country have to really ask ourselves the question, can we participate in a Eurovision Song Contest that doesn’t take the necessary steps?,” Tóibín said.
On an audit of the televote, Tóibín said it “seems unusual that certain countries, such as Ireland, for example, seem to have given significantly high votes to Israel”.
He said audits and transparency are good things in situations like these.
Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez said yesterday that Israel should be excluded from the competition. He is the first European leader to do so.
Sanchez said that the EBU was “allowing double standards” by including Israel, but not Russia.
Israel also performed well in the Irish televote last year. Speaking to The Journal in the wake of last year’s contest pollster Kevin Cunningham explained that the result should not have come as a major surprise noting that, given how the Eurovision voting system works, “you essentially do not need to be universally popular to get a high ranking”.
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