RTE radio and television broadcast live for 20 hours during counting last May and had reporters at each of the 43 constituencies in what was its biggest-ever live broadcast.

The cost of covering the count was up more than 800,000 on the 2002 general election, when 1,731,000 was spent.

The total spend on this year's count day was 2,548,000 with 1,511,000 spent on television programmes on RTE 1 and TG4.

Just 999,000 was spent on TV coverage in 2002.

Covering the count on RTE Radio 1 cost the state broadcaster 266,000, 12,000 more than five years ago.

Keeping internet users around the world up to date on each of the counts cost 200,000, the same as in 2002. The 200,000 bill represents the cost of inputting the count information and posting it on the internet.

Some 751,000 was spent on the broadcaster's shared results service. This involved people in each count centre phoning in the result of every count to RTE election headquarters, where people then inputted them into a central computer. These figures were used by TV, radio, Aertel and in internet coverage.

The shared results service bill came to 458,000 in 2002.

A new computer programme was installed especially for Election 2007 and the old programme was also used in case of technical hitches.

As well as big-name presenters such as Mark Little, Miriam O'Callaghan, Bryan Dobson and John Bowman, hundreds of staff were involved in covering the election count for RTE. Most people worked an average of 17 hours over the Friday and Saturday while counting took place. The total bill includes the cost of exit polls, satellite trucks, catering, make-up and fees for contributors.

The coverage provided by the national broadcaster was widely praised and 723,000 people tuned in to the Nine O'Clock News on Friday 25 May, 120,000 more than on election night in 2002. More than two million people watched coverage at some point, while the rte. ie website got eight million 'hits' over two days.

RTE's TV coverage began at 11am on Friday 25 May and finished at 2.50am the following morning. It resumed at 11am on Saturday morning until 3pm.

Election 2007 began on RTE radio at 7am on Friday morning and continued until 4am the following morning. It resumed at 10am on Saturday until 1pm.

The state broadcaster was unable to provide overall figures for covering the entire election over the nearly four weeks of official campaigning.

The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act.