An environmental group has threatened State authorities with a High Court action unless they erect public warning notices about dangerous substances on an island in Cork Harbour.

Both the Government and Cork County Council have refused to say why they did not publish warnings they received about the safety of Haulbowline Island over two years ago.

A report from 2017 has revealed that Cork County Council was warned that pollution on Haulbowline had “the potential to cause risks to any users of a potential future park” on the site.

An environmental group has lodged a complaint with the European Commission over what it alleges is the State’s failure to properly progress the decontamination of one of the country’s worst polluted industrial sites.

This morning, the LÉ Samuel Beckett left the Naval Base at Haulbowline in County Cork on deployment.

An application is to be made to re-enter in the Commercial Court a dispute over alleged breaches of agreements to clear contaminated materials from the former Irish Steel plant site in Cork.

Many tears of joy and a surprise proposal were among the reactions as the crew of a naval ship returned home just in time for Christmas.

Irish Air Corps concerns about the impact on helicopter safety of a proposed incinerator in Co Cork can be ameliorated if the company behind the application can guarantee it will contain any risk from the plume to within 150m of the stack.

The cadets of the 55th Naval Cadet Class were commissioned as officers of the Naval Service the Naval Base, Haulbowline in Cork on Friday.

The crew of LÉ William Butler Yeats is fully trained and equipped to deal with a new role in Operation Sophia, according to the ship’s commander.

The Government has sanctioned an extra €20m for the clean-up of Haulbowline Island and its toxic waste dump in Cork Harbour, bringing to some €61m the total amount now set aside for the project.

A Maltese naval crew will arrive in Haulbowline in the next few weeks to be trained to operate the LÉ Aoife, which was gifted to Malta amid some controversy.

A total of 1,375 applicants have applied for 80 recruit vacancies in the Naval Service, showing a career on the ocean waves is becoming a popular choice for young people.

A leading environmental campaigner has given her seal of approval to a plan to make safe a toxic dump in Cork harbour and transform it ito a public park.

Up to 200,000 tonnes of soil will have to be brought into the site to cap it and level it off and work will have to be undertaken on a 24-hour basis because of tidal constraints.

Plans for a major clean-up at a toxic dump in Cork harbour are to be the subject of a Bord Pleanála oral hearing.

It will be summer at the earliest before any major work gets under way to make safe a toxic waste dump in Cork harbour, city officials have said.

Ship ahoy! Navy top brass have confirmed that key personnel will shortly be sent to Devon to familiarise themselves with technology onboard their newest vessel before taking her on sea trials later this month.