Suspense ripped from The Apprentice 2011 final as winner makes premature ejaculation

The identity of the latest member of The Bill Cullen Empire has been revealed, albeit a bit sooner than TV3 bosses would have liked.

Cullen pointed the finger approvingly at Eugene Heary in Monday night's The Apprentice finale on TV3, awarding the Kildare native a €200,000 business package for a new auction company, Auction House.

But for some viewers the suspense was taken out of the final night of the show after Heary’s auctionhouse.ie website announced his success long before Cullen pointed the finger for the last time in this year’s show.

Displaying an admirable skill for both breaking up nouns and adding erroneous capital letters, not to mention an exemplary attention to detail, the site declared: “Auction House is the Brain Child (sic) of Eugene Heary and after 12 long weeks fighting for Bill Cullen’s investment on the apprentice (sic) we are glad to launch our new business together. Auction house (sic) is really different because we are mobile and we take our unique system to you!

“We conduct a spectacular event on your site and will turn your stock into cashflow! We guarantee amazing bargains with sensational prizes and giveaways at all our events. Our first Event (sic) is at Liffey Valley Renault on Thursday 2nd February at 6.00pm. We look forward to seeing you there! Eugene Heary”

During the interview process of the final show the eventual winner had demonstrated either a misplaced sense of humour or worryingly delusional tendencies by outlining a list of referees which included Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler and arguably the biggest dictator of all, Simon Cowell.

That wasn’t enough to prevent him from eclipsing his rivals, however, with Joanne Sweeney-Burke’s media consultancy firm, Maurice O’Callaghan’s nutritionally-aware restaurant business and Noel Rowland’s building insulation idea all coming up short.

For all three, though, there was plenty of consolation: Joanne Sweeney-Burke now doesn’t face 15-hour days commuting from Donegal to Dublin by air; Noel Rowland’s pitch was heralded as the best presentation of the evening by Tom McEnaney of the bizarrely named Tom McEnaney Consultants; and Maurice O’Callaghan may well forever pinch himself that style icon Gerald Kean told him he had a nice shirt and tie.

But nobody ever remembers the runners-up, and The Apprentice 2011 was all about Eugene Heary and Auction House.

So Liffey Valley on the first Thursday of February it is. See you there!

Right?