Proposals by the energy minister, Dick Spring, to compel the ESB to buy gas from the Kinsale gasfield at uncommercial rates were described as “hopelessly illogical” by the country’s most senior civil servant.

Plans for a major clean-up of the former Irish Steel site on Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour could be delayed after the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform raised concerns about the scale of expenditure on the project.

Fortnightly analysis of emissions from a proposed incinerator does not constitute “continuous monitoring”, leaving locals potentially exposed to unsafe dioxin levels, an expert in industrial process instrumentation has warned.

Today is the deadline for submitting objections for a proposed incinerator in Cork Harbour.

The EPA wants some 800 sites to lodge millions over the remote fear that their site could be hit by a serious accident.

The Government recently appointed a committee to consider extending the boundary of Cork City. The census records suggest that they proceed with caution.

In documents released under the 30-year rule, here are the stories that have emerged from State papers.

€200m in investments and up to 4,000 marine-centred jobs and new tourism attractions are in Cork Harbour’s pipeline, reports Tommy Barker.

Fears have been expressed that defences erected around a toxic dump were breached during the recent hurricane, releasing potentially harmful chemicals into Cork harbour.

One of the world’s leading biotechnology companies has said it has no intention of resuscitating a €820m plan to create a 1,100-job factory in Co Cork.

Major efforts were made by the State to avert the closure of the Irish Steel plant at Haulbowline, Co Cork, during 1983.

The marine minister has insisted that burying certain waste material dumped on the Haulbowline environmental disaster site in Cork Harbour is the best environmental option as part of a €40m clean-up of the island.

The minister responsible for cleaning up a toxic dump in Cork harbour has promised to look for more money if the project costs in excess of the €40m already set aside by the Government.

FARMERS have warned that toxic waste remains at the massive Aughinish Alumina plant in west Limerick could end up as tomorrow’s Haulbowline toxic dump unless action is taken now.

YESTERDAY’S announcement that the Government has set a two-and-a-half year deadline to clean up the toxic dump at Haulbowline in Cork Harbour must be welcomed.

THE 500,000 tonnes of toxic waste dumped in Cork harbour may never be removed from Haulbowline Island — and instead could be just taped up with an environmental seal, according to Marine Minister Simon Coveney.

EXACTLY 10 years ago, the steel industry died in Cork Harbour leaving a toxic legacy which, according to a government TD, is about to be finally resolved.

THE grieving relatives of a father and his two daughters who died in tragic circumstances in Ballycotton, Co Cork, last week have been asked to remember the “good times” the trio shared before their lives ended so prematurely last Tuesday morning.

Leading forensics experts will today begin examining the inside of a house where two children, their mother and her friend were murdered.

GARDAÍ believe that 43-year-old John Butler killed his two daughters at their home in east Cork before dousing his car in petrol and deliberately crashing it at high speed into a ditch.

FRESH divisions have emerged within the coalition Government after the Green Party said it will not support any plans to sell off commercial state firms and it repeated calls to radically reform the political donations system.

WORKERS at the Lisheen Mines in Co Tipperary are concerned about the security of their jobs, according to a staff member who attended an information meeting with management yesterday.

THE loss of thousands of jobs across the country has been well documented in recent months but, whereas others are feeling the cold hand of recession for the first time only this year, parts of Cork saw the Celtic Tiger shot and skinned many years ago.

INCREASED bin charges, more taxation or increased state borrowing will have to be considered next year if we have to fork out up to €500,000 a day in EU fines for over reliance on landfills, the managing director of Indaver Ireland said.

INDAVER will today claim its plans for a toxic waste incinerator in east Cork will not only resolve Ireland’s mounting waste mountain but will also deal with the expensive problem of contaminated soils and sludges at the former Irish Steel facility in the region.

THE Department of the Environment is finalising a draft plan on how the Cork harbour island of Haulbowline can be cleaned up and redeveloped.

YOUR editorial headlined ‘Dust could be a threat’ (December 8) horrified me, to say the least.

TOXINS, such as chromium, have been found in and around the dump known as the East Tip on Haulbowline Island, but these do not pose a immediate threat to local residents, according to a report of Government-appointed consultants.

THE Irish-American politician the late Tip O’Neill said that all politics are local.

CONSULTANTS charged with assessing the level of contamination at the former Irish Steel plant in Cork Harbour have not sought a report on the extent of hazardous toxins shipped from the site to Germany.

THE owner of a company that specialises in water treatment said yesterday she would be more concerned about airborne chemicals around Cobh than water contaminated by the toxic dump in Haulbowline.

AN INVESTIGATION into cancer rates in the area affected by the Haulbowline pollution crisis is likely, Environment Minister John Gormley has told TDs.

THE news that the Department of the Environment has appointed consultants to carry out an immediate risk assessment of the Irish Steel site is welcome, though it is difficult to understand why such expertise is not available within the department.

THE Naval Service has long had concerns about the environmental impact of the former steel site on Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour.

THE Department of the Environment last night said any suggestions of a “cover-up” of the scale of the contamination at the Irish Steel site were “entirely false”.

THE full extent of potentially toxic contamination on a 27-acre site in Cork is only now being revealed, despite a risk assessment carried out for the Government six years ago.

THE current furore over the Poolbeg incinerator in Dublin is an echo of a similar outcry in the Cork Harbour area over the past few years in relation to the proposed Ringaskiddy unit.

EXPANDING small and medium-sized companies have been saluted for their contribution to a record commercial rates’ total in Cork county last year.

THE first crematorium outside Dublin opened its doors quietly yesterday on an uninhabited island in Cork Harbour.

A €30 MILLION waterside site swoop by developers Howard Holdings is going to make Passage West in Cork harbour, prime and pretty once more.

Confirmation is expected later today that around 1,100 new jobs are to be created in Carrigtwohill in County Cork.

ENVIRONMENT Minister Micheál Martin’s lack of concern at the doubling of dioxin levels in Ringaskiddy is shocking.

PLANNING permission has just been granted for the first crematorium outside of Dublin, which will be built at a cost of €2.5 million.