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LAST UPDATE | 9 Jul 2021
AA ROADWATCH IS set to discontinue its radio traffic reports, The Journal has learned.
The daily rush-hour reports have been a fixture on the Irish airwaves during the morning and evening for 32 years.
The service, which was the brainchild of AA director Denis Fisk, was first launched on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland in September 1989.
Famous voices associated with the reports was television presenter Lorraine Keane and Nuala Carey.
AA Roadwatch also has a website and social media accounts which it says provides real-time traffic and travel information.
AA Ireland was part of AA plc in the UK until 2016, when it was acquired by Carlyle Cardinal Ireland fund and Carlyle Global Financial Services Partners for €156.6 million.
US private equity fund Further Global Capital Management acquired a controlling stake for more than €240 million last October.
Don Brennan, Managing Director of AA Insurance said decision was made “following a strategic review”
“As of July 10th 2021, The AA will no longer provide AA Roadwatch broadcasts, effective immediately – he said the company will continue to issue travel advice online and on social media.
“We have decided to move away from this service and instead focus on growing other areas of our business. The raft of new GPS technologies and traffic information sources means a wealth of detail available to motorists from various sources.
“We know that many listeners will miss the traffic reports. We would like to sincerely thank all of the current staff and previous ‘Roadwatchers’ for representing The AA with such professionalism and distinction over the last 32 years.
“Still, we feel that now is a good time to move on. We are conducting a consultation process with the AA Roadwatch staff that is commencing today about the future of the editorial content direction of the brand .”
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As usual we only hear about the antics this should be about the fake information gov continues to provide
Martin is an incredibly bad politician. He’s also got a very nasty streak and is a compulsive liar.
And that’s what a large proportion of the electorate voted for, I guess.
@James Groden: Aontù are the only ones that have shown any leadership and intelligence.
SF have lost the room by their fixation on their Hamas brothers.
@James Groden: If history has taught us anything, it’s that being a compulsive liar is exactly what makes someone a good politician.
@Gerard Martin: If history has taught us anything,it’s easy to to sound off in opposition as if you have all the answers(and all of them start with ‘it’s easy,all you have to do is….’But it’s vastly different in government when you actually have to make decisions and be judged all day and night by Monday morning quarterbacks.
@Thomas Sheridan: God help your senses. I wouldn’t let him at lego houses!
@Thomas Sheridan: who?
@Thomas Sheridan: Toíbín’s constant lies bought by the gullible
@Thomas Sheridan: Hamas AND open borders!
@Brian D’Arcy: Would that not be even more true of all the parties
@Housing Hunger Games: Respect for the collective judgement of the electorate
@James Groden: There you go, telling untruths again.
Price of housing is crazy and anything associated with building a house or a wall. Etc etc.
New build are asking 5k to put your name on a house and 25k on signing. That’s just one example. Government did nothing and doing nothing to stop this.
Plenty of dog boxes available. Just no one can afford them .
Typical fffg gravy train.
It’s a hung government call an election, it’s preposterous what’s going on, and the speaker of the house is a joke.
An embarrassment of a government
This government of FFG and lackys will not last 12 months it is very fractured, and mehole does not look comfortable at all he’s running to every country he can to get away from his pre election lies
@N D K: Money talks and €200k pa talks very loudly to the independent junior ministers.
That’s a cool €1000000 each if they can drag it out for the 5 years.
It’ll just about buy a 1940s 2up/2down ex corporation houses at that stage.
Typical guff out of Mehole. That man just can’t take criticism without slinging mud. He should try answering the questions he is asked instead of replying with personal slights.
@Shimo F: He’s a slieveen and a congenital liar!
Eoin Ó Broin only wrote two books on housing but sure what would he know, what everyone knows is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are full of excuses and nothing more lying their way into power with no housing plan and attacking the opposition, cheap of them and cheap of those who voted for them and yet they come on here acting as if they didn’t do it and they’re too afraid to use their real names, little children and nothing more.
@Brian D’Arcy: people write books. Nothing new in that. It’s the content that matters. And as reviewers pointed out at the time, o’broins ideas were not going to solve this or any other housing problems. No better than the govt’s ideas.
@Brian D’Arcy: Then they have the neck to call it democracy
Bacik is well able to point out the facts and show it all up. In my opinion, she is a great person to have in government, not once have i seen her ‘waffle’ like a lot of them!
@derek: Is that the same Labour that had the biggest house building plan in the history of the state in 2015?
@derek: Derek you give dereks a bad name
At at the end of all the waffle endless debates housing crisis increases marvellous work mountains upon mountains of hot air on a merry go round going nowhere.
The school brats are disrupting the class again.
11 weeks since the election and absolutely nothing to show from either the government or the main opposition parties.
@Thomas Sheridan: sure they are only back from there holiday there. The holiday that they just got after getting a few weeks of for Christmas. The fact that we sit there, and watch these politicians pay themselves 100k+ a year and expenses, then take months worth of holidays a year, and do nothing about it. It shows how we as a people are.
@Joe Willis: 100k+ and expenses is just the pin money to these shysters!
Why is that irrelevant leader of Labour getting a lot of coverage recently? She has all the problems but none of the answers, just like most of them barking from the sideline.
@Joe Willis: Ivana Bacik is not paid to have the solutions, the government are…. but don’t have anything. A dolly mixture government with as much integrity as a bag of Dolly Mixtures!!!
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: What is she paid to do? Stand there and point out everything that’s wrong and call it a day? She won’t get into government that way. The ‘opposition’ as they are called are supposed to incite voters to vote for them. No matter what party they are from. The way you do that is point out the problems (which they are already good at), then give your solution to fix the problems. If the public think you are speaking sense, and can fix their problems, they will vote for you. If you point out problems everyday, like every party does (as they should), but don’t give your solution, you’re just doing what parties like PBP do. That’s why they get about 3% of votes.
@Joe Willis: Labour are not in government for a reason, the ineptitude and arrogance of the current is a total off put to anyone with a conscience. Reading between your “line” you seem to be proposing an all party government, which in itself is undemocratic, except in times of extreme circumstances. As regards “standing there pointing out things that are wrong”, that is what opposition politicians do.
It would do you and some of your like minded FF/FG + dole trolls to urge your heros to listen to the Opposition. THEY do have brains!!
@Ollie Fitzpatrick: yes that’s why I said (as they should), I think you missed that part. No I don’t want a one party government at all. I want a single party who can fix our problems. I don’t support FF FG I didn’t vote for them, and I also think coalitions shouldn’t be allowed. My point was Labour do a very bad job in inciting the public to vote for them, because they have all the problems but none of the solutions.
Bit of a wet n windy storm coming for Saturday night, have your gennys on standby
The behaviour of TDs in the Dail is becoming increasingly puerile and unseemly. There are very few adults in the proverbial room! Surely, it should be possible to engage in civil debate without recourse to personal abuse and name-calling.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
What hope have we got with these phuking moroñs in charge?
@Chop Chop: And you the one constantly preaching about them, get real.
@Brian D’Arcy: What?
Never forget the fact that they are all as bad as each other. None of the parties in the Dáil have a coherent plan to solve the housing crisis in Ireland. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil created it with their centre-left Keynesian interventionist policies, high levels of regulation, and strict rent control. The left-wing and far-left parties in opposition want to make the problem even worse. The solution to solving the housing crisis is very simple: Cut the red tape. Eliminate bureaucratic roadblocks like zoning laws, building codes that are overly restrictive, and complex permitting processes. Abolish all forms of government housing subsidies. Housing assistance programs like HAP not only distort the market but undermine individual responsibility and self-sufficiency. Abolish all rent control.
@William Jennings: Ha ha, left-wing, get real son
@J B: Illegal immigration crisis you mean. Yes, that might play some role in it, but the problem is caused mostly by government intervention, as all economic problems in this country are caused by. Legal immigration isn’t a problem here though. We received 100,000 legal immigrants a year from Eastern Europe between 2003-2008 and there were no problems because they came here with proper documentation and integrated into our country property. The solution to your problem could be solved very easily. All the government has to do is start enforcing the immigration laws that are currently on the books like it was done 15-20 years ago. If you do not come to Ireland with proper documentation, you are deported back to your country of origin until customs can do a proper background check.
@Brian D’Arcy: You are such a plank Brian. You literally have no answers whatsoever to anything that anyone says on this site that you disagree with. Get real, the opposition parties are either left-wing or far-left. Some of them (Sinn Fein, Labour, Social Democrats) are openly Socialist and then PBP is an explicitly Marxist political party which wants to overthrow democracy. Read their manifestos and listen to the speeches of their politicians. All of them spout the same old recycled rhetoric which lacks any basis in reality and none of the opposition parties have any sort of clue about basic economic principles. Their policies would exacerbate the housing crisis. They would destroy our economy and put us back in the 1980s with high inflation and high unemployment.
Whether u like it or not ff and FG have been elected by the people.
They can do what they like
@John Purcell: but ‘lessons learned’ though
Micheál sticking it to them
Brilliant performance from a brilliant leader
Amazing how unvetted criminals are supported in our country
If they ALL put as much time & effort into trying to solve the housing crisis as they do into slaging each other off, then maybe just maybe they could ALL agree on a definite housing programme.
Feet on the street will stop these pantos
Micheal Martin a very bitter old man, he has the potential to infect anyone around him with bitterness hatred lies and intimidation..
We British in Ireland are shocked by the unparliamentary language heard from elected representatives but it wont deter us from becoming proud Irish citizens with shiny new passports!
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