Text messages dying out

Ireland's love affair with the text messages may be coming to an end.

The latest figures from ComReg suggest the average person in Ireland sends 5.85 texts a day.

Around 2.4 billion texts were sent between April and June - but that's down nearly 25% in just 18 months.

The Irish Independent's technology editor Adrian Weckler has said people are shunning texts in favour of cheaper options.

"Most people are using smartphones now and they are using their data plans to use alternative services like what'sapp or viber or imessage and if you have a basic data plan then these are essentially free to use."