Mayo Senator, John O’Mahony, has welcomed RTÉ’s decision to shelve plans to cut its longwave radio service saying it’s good news for many elderly Irish emigrants in the UK who use the service to keep in contact and up to date with Irish news, sport and entertainment.

Listeners to longwave tend to be people who don’t have access to digital broadcasts.

The Fine Gael Senator says that the State broadcaster had originally intended to switch off the Longwave 252 service in October 2014, but after intensive lobbying from himself and others the switch off date was put back until 2017.

Now RTÉ has confirmed that a review is underway into the future of the longwave service and that no timeline has been set for its potential shutdown.