Limerick City planners have been left red-faced over their objection to two neighbours restoring their roofs to their original red slate colour.

A local authority has called in the country’s top planning referee to decide if two suburban neighbours should get a yellow card over painting their roofs red.

A large building materials firm has moved to ease fears about plans to develop a construction and demolition waste recovery facility near one the country’s largest housing estates.

Strike action concerning four companies led to almost 11,000 individual work days being missed during the third quarter of the year.

ROADSTONE Wood is facing legal action by more than 80 haulage drivers who claim the firm is using freelance operators in spite of the fact there is not enough work for its own drivers.

Sixteen jobs are to go in Wicklow with the closure of a quarry in Blessington.

Roadstone, a leading Irish building materials company, has been fined €17,500 at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for breaches of health and safety legislation over five years ago which left two electricians with burns.

A GROUP of 15 Roadstone workers from Holycross, Co Tipperary, yesterday collected their jackpot win of €2,883,783 from the Midweek Lotto draw of last Wednesday.

A controversy has erupted in Co Wicklow over plans to remove 70ft of rock from the peak of Arklow Rock.

A BRITISH minerals expert yesterday defended his valuation of a State-owned sand and gravel property in Co Wicklow, sold privately to the Roadstone company in 1990 for £1.25 million (€1.58m).

FORMER senior Roadstone executives told the Moriarty Tribunal yesterday there was no evidence of political interference when the company privately bought State lands in Co Wicklow that contained large sand and gravel deposits 15 years ago.

FORMER Energy Minister Bobby Molloy told the Moriarty Tribunal yesterday he was unaware his predecessor had given a Dáil commitment that State lands in Co Wicklow would be sold by public tender.

NO improper, unethical or political influence was brought to bear when State lands were sold privately to the Roadstone company — whose chairman was financial adviser to then Taoiseach Charles J Haughey, the Moriarty Tribunal heard yesterday.

THE Moriarty Tribunal yesterday gave details of its latest probe into possible links between former Taoiseach Charles J Haughey and the private sale of State lands in Wicklow to the Roadstone company.

THE EPA informs the media that it has refused a waste licence application from Roadstone in Wicklow. It says this confirms the Agency’s proposed decision which came out last July. That decision was to refuse the application.

ENVIRONMENT Minister Dick Roche last night challenged Roadstone’s assertion that it never knew more than 50,000 tonnes of illegal and partially hazardous waste had been dumped on its land in Wicklow.

TDs across the political spectrum last night gave a broad welcome to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to refuse Roadstone Dublin Ltd a licence for a landfill site on its land in Blessington, Co Wicklow.

THE unusually tough stance adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Roadstone dumping controversy will be welcomed up and down the country, especially in scenic areas where cowboy operators have been tipping waste for years.

The environmental body An Taisce has expressed concern that the Environmental Protection Agency may allow some illegally dumped waste to remain on Roadstone lands near Blessington in Co Wicklow.

The Environmental Protection Agency has refused to give the quarrying company Roadstone permission to construct a landfill in Co Wicklow.

AN INQUIRY has been ordered into a proposed land purchase deal between Roadstone and a local authority which is probing illegal dumping on part of the land.

THE Dáil will be asked later this month to invoke a rarely-used power to compel cement multinational CRH to appear before an Oireachtas Committee.

THERE are compelling reasons for granting powers to the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment to urge witnesses to attend its hearings.

Mary Dundon, Political Reporter

THERE are no plans to toll the major new dual carriageway link between Waterford and Kilcullen, according to those behind the project.

ENVIRONMENT Minister Dick Roche yesterday questioned Roadstone’s denial that it had any knowledge of extensive illegal dumping on its land.

A 55-year-old man has been killed in a workplace accident in Co Tipperary.

A DRIVER was last night hailed a hero after evacuating children from a burning school bus in Co Limerick.

A COUPLE granted permission for an extension to their home have been told they could lose their house to make way for a new road.

Oracle Consulting Services has signed a €2m deal with Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH) for the implementation of Oracle's e-Business Suite of applications.

Easy-Fix, a new glass block ‘system’ from Roadstone Architectural is likely to spur something of a renaissance for the use of glass block in Irish homes. If current devotees of this innovative arrival are to be believed, glass block is the new must have for house building and renovation projects in 2002/2003.

THE backers of a multi-million euro housing and commercial development have dismissed claims that the drinking water source for its thousands of residents and occupants will be affected by the presence of an illegal dump nearby.

CEMENT giant CRH will be grilled today by an Oireachtas committee on why tonnes of waste were illegally buried on its lands.

LABOUR politicians were yesterday refused access to the site of a large illegal dump in Wicklow. The site is owned by building group Roadstone.

IT will be weeks before the investigation of what is potentially one of the biggest illegal dumpsites in the country is completed, experts admitted yesterday.

John Murphy takes a closer look at how Sam Shire made local history