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So then this happened.

And with no notice at all, in the space of a single day, AA Roadwatch disappeared off our airwaves.

According to their own announcement, this was a decision made by the AA, which “decided to move away from this service and instead focus on growing other areas of [their] business”. That’s corporatespeak for closing down an unprofitable business.

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John Lyons is the Independent Left councillor on Dublin City Council for Artane–Whitehall.

*****

I want to talk about a scandal.

Actually, it’s not so much a scandal, it’s not even a scandal about a scandal, it’s a scandal about a scandal about a scandal. A third order scandal, if you like.

The first order scandal is about how gardaí handle 999 calls, or more accurately, don’t handle them. an inquiry, led by Assistant Commissioner Barry O’Brien examined several thousand 999 emergency calls about domestic violence in the two-year period, finding that about half of these calls were cancelled when they should not have been.

Basically, what happened was that someone rang 999, the operator asked what service, fire, ambulance or gardaí, and because they witnessed a crime, or were witnessing a crime or were the victim of a crime they asked for the gardaí, and were put through, and the garda who answered the phone typed into his computer system the details of what the caller reported. They typed it into their computer, that’s important, I’ll get back to that in a moment.

Then the garda had to make a decision. They had to decide to send a hoard of officer in a fleet vehicles, backed up by the armed response unit, and the garda helicopter; or they had to decide whether to send a patrol car, or an officer on foot, or to inform the local station to check up on something when they got the time.