A group of workmates this afternoon cashed in a lottery ticket worth more than €1.5 million just 90 minutes before it expired.
The three Dubliners only realised they had the crucial ticket when one of them heard a radio appeal urging the winner to come forward.
One of the syndicate members found the ticket lying in a pile of letters and the group - two men and a woman - arrived at the office at 4pm. The deadline was 5.30pm.
The organiser of the group - who all wish to remain anonymous - told how he realised a ticket lying in his kitchen was the winner.
He said: "I was in the car yesterday afternoon when I heard Ronan Collins on his radio show talking about Heffernan's shop in Phibsboro, where the ticket was purchased, and I thought to myself that I had purchased some Lotto tickets there for our group, but I thought no more about it."
At about 3pm today he picked up a newspaper which confirmed that the winning numbers matched those the group had chosen in mid-September, and went to look for the ticket.
"I knew exactly where it was - lying on the kitchen table in the middle of a lot of mail and when I checked it, there were the numbers, just as on the newspaper," he said.
"I quickly telephoned my two colleagues to see if they could get into the National Lottery's offices in time - at that stage I was afraid that the offices would close at 4pm and it was already well after 3pm.
"We all arrived there at around 4pm - just in the nick of time."
Ray Bates of the National Lottery said: "We were gobsmacked, in a word, when with only 90 minutes to go a group of three people came into the lottery and claimed the 1,639,685 euro."
PA