Today on one of Ireland's most popular daily radio programmes, Liveline, a severe backlash against RTE's decision to allow the puppet, Dustin, to enter the national final. Joe Duffy, the show's presenter, will be familiar to some Eurovision fans already. In 2003 he lead the claims of plagiarism of the 2000 ESC winner by the Irish entry of that year.
On the matter of Dustin's entry, several Eurovsion linked writers were very vocal in their outrage. Frank McNamara, who was the musical director of the Late Late Show for 20 years began the criticism of the juries decision to progress the children's puppet's song to the final of Eurosong 2008. He was closely joined by Shay Healy, who wrote the 1980 Eurovision Song Cotest winner. Shay's argument was extremely sarcastic to begin with, and it soon became apparent that he was totally disgusted by RTE's decision. Then another Eurovision winner added his voice to the chorus of complaints. Phil Coulter (composer of UK 1967 + 1968 & Luxembourg 1975).
Bill Hughes, the jury chairman, then came in to defend the selection. As is usual for Liveline, a heated discussion ensued.  
Joe Duffy played a skit of what Dustin's song could sound like throughout the programme, but it has to be made clear that this song has absolutely no link the actual song which will compete in the Eurosong final. Bill Hughes asked Joe Duffy to clarify this, but Duffy refused to stop playing the song and never made it clear that this was not the entry. Hughes then had to hang up, because he was being continuously battered by Duffy and his other guests. It has to be noted that Duffy rarely forms a coherent opinion during his show and usually tries to antagonise his guests.
Contrary to rumours that aired during the week, Bill Hughes told Joe Duffy thet the songs wouldn't be made publice until the night. It was thought that RTE would make the songs available for public listening before the live final to try and balance out the unfair advantage that Dustin would have.
No concensous was raised, but the general feeling of the whole programme was a negative one.