Morning Ireland bosses were left red faced after the breakfast radio show was forced to play music after an unexplained interruption.
The technical issue arose about 15 minutes into the broadcast and in the middle of an interview with Political reporter Micheál Lehane about the eviction ban.
As Mr Lehane reported on the options facing the Government, he was cut-off. There was dead air for over 20 seconds, before After the Fire by the Lost Brothers began playing.
The interruption lasted for two and a half minutes in total.
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When it returned, host Mary Wilson admitted that they “just disappeared”.
"You’re welcome back. We’re not quite sure what happened there. We just disappeared. We couldn’t even hear ourselves,” she said.
The interview with Micheál Lehane was abandoned and the programme continued with a segment on Ukraine.
RTE took to Twitter on the official Morning Ireland page to apologise to listeners as they continue to investigate what exactly happened.
They wrote: “Apologies to listeners for that technical hitch which took our programme off air and forced us to go to music. We're trying to work out what happened.
“But the good news is we're back on air now and you can watch and listen to us here.”
A spokesman for RTE later said: “There was a malfunction with one of the technical systems which has now been identified and has been addressed.”
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