Louis Walsh has confirmed the end of his managerial involvement in the career of Ronan Keating.

Speaking to hotpress.com, Ireland’s most successful ever pop svengali was matter of fact about the end of a business relationship that went back to the formation of Boyzone at the beginning of the ‘90s. "Ronan’s gone from me," Walsh said. "I had been out of contract for six months and in the end he just left. But I’m cool about it. I’m much more vibed up about Westlife and Samantha Mumba and Bellefire and Six – who are going to break the UK in the next 12 months."

The split with Ronan came about, at least in part, due to a dispute about the singer’s future as a serious artist – with the disagreement reportedly ending up in a verbal spat at the Four Seasons Hotel, where the singer and his long-time aide had been meeting. "I told him he was Cliff Richard," Louis says. "I didn’t mean it as a slag. I meant that he was safe and middle of the road – and that he could, like Cliff, have a career that would last for another thirty years. But he didn’t appreciate the comparison."

Walsh is currently high on the success being achieved by Westlife, who have just embarked on a tour that will see them do 38 arena shows across the UK and Ireland – including 2 sell-out gigs at Lansdowne Road, as well as a number of Northern Ireland dates.

"It’s absolutely incredible," he said. "Who’d have thought that a boyband would be able to attract that kind of audience in Ireland? But they’ve stuck together and they just keep on getting bigger. The fact is that Westlife have outlasted and outdistanced all of those acts that were slagging them – Ash and JJ72 and the rest of them, who are nowhere now."

Far from seeing the current tour as the group’s last stand, Walsh insists that they have a gameplan, which is guaranteed to keep the fans coming back for more. "They want to up the ante a bit," he told hotpress.com. "I don’t want to say too much about it now, but the way they’re developing will be very interesting, I can assure you of that."