Nicole Gernon is a television reporter with Virgin Media News. She tells us about her usual journey from home in Kilmainham to work at the Virgin Media offices in Ballymount.

Tell me about your regular journey to work

I live in Kilmainham and I drive out to Ballymount every day because it's much quicker, and you need your car with you because you never know if you might be sent off somewhere.

I work shifts, so it can take anywhere between 10 and 20 minutes. If it was taking any longer, I think i'd be getting annoyed! It's not too bad.

Also, I often do a lot of court reporting or get sent to press conferences, so I can walk to the CCJ or the Four Courts or even into town - that's handy as well.

What are the major variables that affect how long it takes?

It depends on the time of day. The earliest I start is 8am and the latest I finish is 10pm so in that case it's a 2pm start. We have a couple of 9:30 and 10:30 starts.

Sometimes there can be crashes, and also I have to go over the Luas tracks at a couple of different points so there can be people sitting in yellow boxes and things like that. There can be loads and loads of traffic in Ballymount so sometimes that's actually the worst part of it. That can slow things down.

What about heading home?

It's not too bad, probably a little bit longer because a lot more people are leaving around the same time, whereas even if I'm starting on the 9:30 shift a lot of people would already be in work by then. An awful lot of people would leave around 6 so it would take me somewhere between 20 minutes and half an hour, and I take a look at what the traffic is like on a few different routes.

How do you pass the time?

When I'm in the car in the morning I usually listen to a current affairs show to set me up for the day and see what's happening and what I might be sent on. It depends on the time but I might be listening to Pat Kenny if I'm going into work for the 9:30 or 10:30 shift, then coming home in the evening I would probably stick on The Last Word with Matt Cooper [on Today FM] - I used to read the news on it. But if I've had a very stressful day then I might stick on a podcast or music radio.

What kinds of podcasts do you listen to?

I've gotten really into podcasts in the last couple of years. I have a couple of go-tos which would probably be Motherfoclóir - I just love hearing the Irish words for things and about people that are doing different things in the Irish music and literary scenes - and Criminal as well because I love a bit of true crime. That's the lawyer in me as well! 

At the moment I'm listening to the latest Slow Burn, which is the story of the Tupac and Biggie rivalry, and I'm loving that. That's coming to an end so I don't know what I'll do when that finishes.

What's the best commute you have ever had? And the worst?

The simplest is probably this at the moment because it's only 10 or 20 minutes and I can get in my car and go there. Environmentally, it would have been when I was working at Today FM because I could just walk into town which wasn't too much stress - I was living in Kilmainham at the time.

The worst was probably... I grew up in Celbridge and lived there well into my 20s, and one of my first proper jobs was as a trademark attorney in Ballsbridge. That either meant getting one of the early 67X buses or else driving, and that could mean really bad queues of traffic both on the M50 and coming through Terenure and those sorts of places. It could take ages depending on what time it was - it could be an hour-and-a-half.