A public representative who was born in a mother and baby home won unanimous support from her colleagues to call on the government to buy the home rather than see it fall into the hands of private developers.

Plans for the demolition of a former public toilet and council store near the promenade in Youghal have been approved, despite objections from local residents.

The move comes after councillors expressed concerns about the lack of information they had on air quality in the region and more importantly about a recent deterioration noted at a monitoring station in Cobh.

A senior Bus Éireann official has said there's nothing he can do about an anomaly whereby passengers from Youghal, Co Cork, pay double the price to get to Cork City than commuters from Dungarvan, Co Waterford.

One of the most important ways in which the State can make a difference to the quality of people’s lives can be tested, in the number and quality of homes provided to people on low incomes.

With the economic recession, compounded by greed and avarice on the part of some landlords, and the annual rates, many commercial concerns have closed while others struggle for financial survival.

Alan O'Connor (35) who worked in the Natural History Collections at the National Museum in Dublin, had just completed a teacher training course.

The longest-serving public representative in the State is on the campaign trail as he prepares to contest the local elections in the East Cork municipal district.

A special committee of Cork County Council is to look at the possibility of setting up women’s refuges and ‘safe houses’ after an impassioned plea was made by a councillor who described how she was once a victim of domestic abuse.

Fears have been raised that wastewater treatment works planned for a pier in East Cork could undermine the structure and cause untold damage to the local fishing industry.

Many people are sleeping rough, and were it not for the good work of organisations such as Cork Simon Community, St Vincent de Paul and sheltered housing, many more would be left on our streets.

A target date 2022 for constructions works on a flood relief scheme will be met, Cork County Council has insisted.

We certainly need a rights culture in terms of basic human rights for the disabled.

Road repairs, grass-cutting, and other services are not being delivered to a lot of people in Co Cork as the local authority is starved of money due to the Government taking 20% of the local property tax (LPT).

Cork County Council wants Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to create a national emergency committee to tackle the housing crisis — one which will act with the same urgency which addressed the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the North in 2001.

HSE officials will be asked to explain why a county councillor had to wait three hours for an ambulance and why its crew then spent a further two and a half hours outside a Cork hospital before they were given back the trolley on which she had been lying.

Cork County Council has investigated 444 complaints about alleged “neighbours from hell” in the past three years in its southern division alone. It has repossessed 21 homes from antisocial tenants.

A formal proposal by Cork County Council to extend the city boundary would leave it with a revenue deficit of €8.6m annually, considerably less than a near €50m per year loss if the Mackinnon report recommendations are implemented.

Commercial rates legislation must be modernised, says a Cork County Councillor, who is appealing to Local Government Minister, Eoghan Murphy, to “expedite the proposed Consolidated Rates Bill”.

A statutory inspection has revealed an alarmingly high number of private rented properties in Cork county were potential death traps.

The lack of a children’s detention centre outside of Dublin is to be raised in the European Court of Human Rights by Cork County Council.

Your letters, your views...

The HSE has been told that it should develop a hospital it has rather than spend millions of euro on a new one on the southside of Cork city.

Your letters, your views...

Your letters, your views...

Cork County Council is to employ its own occupational therapists to clear a backlog of claims for housing adaptation grants because the HSE does not have the personnel to manage the job.

Your letters, your views...

A mother and her two young children are living in a storage space in an attic provided by her parents after the young family had to leave their home due to soaring rents.

I appeal to the incoming Government to continue investment in education, research and development, and the provision of broadband across the State, particularly in East and West Cork, which, has been starved of industrial development over a long period of time.

If fast-food restaurants are infested with rats, the rest of us better stock up on Warfarin. Or domesticate them and keep them as pets, writes Terry Prone.

Homeowners have been advised to watch their bums during floods after a man in Midleton, Co Cork, was bitten by a rat while sitting on the toilet.

Homeowners have been advised to watch their backsides during floods after a man in the Midleton area of Co Cork was bitten by a rat while sitting on the toilet, writes David Linnane.

The OPW is being urged to allow some funding to be released to Cork County Council engineers so that they can carry out interim prevention works to ease tidal flooding.

The lack of funding to build strategic roads in Cork county will provide a “significant challenge” for the local authority.