Senior gardaí have encouraged people to take simple steps to improve their home and vehicle security after a surge in burglary rates across Cork city and county.

Cork has three garda chief superintendents but, under new guidelines issued by the departments of justice and environment, only two will in future be allowed to sit on the county’s Joint Policing Committee (JPC).

Householders and businesses are nearly four times more likely to be burgled on the affluent south side of Cork City than in parts of West Cork.

They say crime doesn’t pay, but in this unique case it will help highlight the good work that many previously unsung young heroes do for their communities.

Public representatives say most of their fears about a potential downgrading of policing in a large part of Co Cork have been allayed by senior gardaí.

More than 600children from Cork and Limerick are taking part in one of the biggest single road safety campaigns ever undertaken.

Safe roadside walkways may soon be created around Co Cork in an effort to cut down on pedestrian deaths.

Criminals are responsible for a 40% increase in burglaries in Co Cork in the first quarter — many of them striking when householders are attending Mass.

A taskforce is to be set up in Cork to reduce road deaths, which have soared well above the national average.

PRAYERS will be said this morning that the weather will change sufficiently to allow divers to search the wreck of the Tit Bonhomme, which may conceal the bodies of five fishermen feared drowned after it struck rocks and sank at the entrance to a bay in Co Cork.

GARDAÍ interviewed the driver involved in a hit-and-run incident in Cork last weekend after he presented himself voluntarily at a garda station yesterday.

THE GAA's Munster Council has stressed there was "absolutely no danger" to spectators in the Blackrock end terrace in Sunday's hurling final, which saw a small number of young people escorted on to the area behind the end line.