Ajax Webchat - IRC connection

I'm looking to have an Ajax chatroom connect to an IRC server.

I have a website that is using ajax/php chat in the style of msn chat but due to it connecting to MySQL it's causing issue's and lag as more people join once theres around 15 people in the chat it all grinds to a halt as i've found out it's using alot of CPU, plus the site has only been online a week and due to the refresh the stats show nearly 2 million hits and using over a gig of bandwidth per day so i do need to try and get this sorted.

I would like for someone to either:

Use what i already have with the features that are in the chat to connect to IRC or

Create a new chatroom for the website with features as i have already and connect to IRC.

I am open to suggestions, but i do not want flash applets, I really do wish for this to be as similar to the old msn chat as possible and once complete there are other features that i would like to add in time so your services will no doubt be called upon again, however i do need to see how this site growns first.

Thank you!

If someone who could create a flash applet for this project that will be smooth and clean user interface i would be willing to use as i've recently found out flash could be a good option.

Adobe Flash Java MySQL PHP

Project ID: #1006516

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