RTÉ's Morning Ireland goes off air suddenly, dead air filled with unexpected song choice

The station was forced to play music after the system went down without warning.

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 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 and on return, 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 the programme continued with a segment on Ukraine.

In a statement issued after the issue was resolved, RTÉ apologised to listeners.

“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 spokesperson said.