Hundreds of punters who placed bets on Ireland winning the Eurovision song contest are to be given refunds following last night's semi-finals performance.
Louis Walsh
Paddy Power said the company expected to refund almost €25,000 to those who placed bets on the Athlone brother-and-sister act Donna and Joe McCaul.
"Everybody feels cheated. There was so much hype around Ireland having a real chance of winning and we didn't even qualify," a spokeswoman told ireland.com.
"We're refunding all bets placed on Ireland to win. After seeing some of the performances last night maybe they'll put their refunds on the real winner."
The McCauls, who were enthusiastically received by the audience in Kiev last night, were joined onstage by four dancers who performed a Riverdance-like break in the middle of their up-tempo Eurovision pop number, Love?, written by Karl Broderick.
But the song failed to impress members of the public last night who voted by phone top put 10 countries through to the finals of the event on Saturday night.
Pop guru and manager of Westlife Louis Walsh said Ireland had crashed out of the contest because the McCauls were "amateurs".
He said: "The standard was very, very high. But other countries are sending their biggest stars, with their best songwriters.
"We sent two amateurs, that is the real, real problem. Two people that don't know the business as well as they should. They did their very very best, they didn't let us down. But they weren't good enough and the song was not good enough," he said.
Last night's semi-final featured 25 acts competing the 10 places. The successful 10 countries from last night join 14 already-qualified finalists. The favourite is Helena Paparizou from Greece, with her pop anthem "My Number One."
This is only the second year that the Eurovision contest has been split into two nights of competition to accommodate the increasing number of participating countries.
Additional reporting PA