The National Planning Conference gets underway in Kilkenny later, with unfinished housing estates and the Mahon Report set to dominate proceedings at the two-day event.

The national spatial strategy — not just the final frontier, but a step too far where the country’s local authorities and planners were concerned.

New directions for physical planning of the built environment post-Mahon Report, along with the future of the country’s ghost and unfinished estates, will come under a planners’ spotlight at month’s end.

An Bord Pleanála should be allowed review local authority development plans and even veto council decisions on land rezoning, the country’s planning association has said.

In the aftermath of the Mahon Report our politicians are still seeking to blame the wrong people for their failings.

Experts have warned the future build of the National Children’s Hospital could be at risk if the Government fails to include a planner on its special review group.

The Irish Planning Institute has called for scores of derelict sites around the country to be turned into low-cost community projects.

An 18-month-old boy died after becoming entangled in the cord of a blind in his bedroom, a UK inquest heard today.

THE Institute of Certified Public Accountants said it made an operating surplus of €153,490 in 2007.

LEADING players in the Irish economy expect 2008 to be a tough year for Irish business, according to a new poll.

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CPA) has criticised the low increase in the VAT threshold for small business in the Budget.

The Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CPA) in Ireland has appointed Brendan Allen as the new president of the institute.

MILTON FRIEDMAN, the free market economist who died last November, had little truck with the idea that businesses had responsibilities for anything other than making profits for investors.