Over 200 Eurovision delegates, including the singer of the Irish entry, Ms Dawn Martin, were evacuated from their Birmingham hotel following a fire alert last night. It was later discovered that it was a false alarm.
RTE's director of television, Mr Joe Mulholland and Irish conductor Noel Kelehan were also among those evacuated from the Swallow Hotel which is close to tonight's venue for the Eurovision Song Contest. A spokesman for the hotel said the likely cause of the alert was someone putting a cigarette too close to one of the smoke detector panels.
