Executive staff of Cork County Council, backed by elected members, have warned the Government any attempt to re-route a proposed motorway link between Cork and Limerick through Tipperary would be a disaster for the economies of North Cork, Kerry, and West Limerick.

Fears have been expressed that a northern bypass of Mallow will be put on the long finger, as was the mothballed motorway link between Cork and Limerick.

Repair work is nearly complete on the “worst” street surface in Ireland, in Buttevant town. And motorists using the main Cork-Limerick road will soon not have the frustration of waiting in long queues at roadworks.

Commuters and tourists still face delays and detours in West Cork as the county council battles to repair serious damage inflicted in the region during last winter’s storms.

Councillors have pleaded with Transport Initiative Ireland (TII) not to completely close a main road in North Cork for realignment and resurfacing as it could kill off businesses in two villages.

Cork County Council engineers are to survey a section of road in West Cork where it is claimed motorists are getting unnecessary speeding fines and penalty points.

More than €2.3m in damage was caused to roads and bridges in Cork county alone following last month’s storm. Some roads remain closed.

Cork County Council is to write to Bus Éireann to say that there are no issues with the road on which a school bus crashed in North Cork earlier this month.

Monuments dotted around the country dedicated to the War of Independence are not protected as historic sites.

Cork County Council has been instructed by the Department of the Environment to ‘acquire’ 1,217 properties for social housing in the next three years, mainly by building them or leasing from the private sector.

Cork County Council has opened books of condolence in memory of Karen Buckley and is to write to the Scottish police and the local authority in Glasgow thanking them for the professionalism and for the support the city’s people showed her family.

Cork County Council and businesses in Mallow are to fund a consultants’ report aimed at showing the Government the economic necessity of creating a northern bypass of the town.

Two villages in north Cork are expected to have longstanding water supply problems resolved in the near future.

Road users in Co Cork should take some comfort from the fact that the local authority "has never been better prepared" to deal with any threat of snow and ice.

Cork County Council is committing €1.2m of its reserves into repairing potholed roads, while it waits to see if the Government will reimburse it for the €2.27m worth of damage done to the roads since Storm Darwin on February 12.

Cork County Council has temporarily lifted an overtime ban on its road repair crews so they can try and tackle the pothole crisis on many of the county’s 12,000kms of roads.

The country’s largest local authority is considering bringing in private contractors to fill in its potholes because it can’t cope with the workload.

Another €4m-plus is needed by Cork County Council to fix storm damage on top of the €3.98m it has already received from the Government.

The customers of a well-known pub/restaurant were hoping for a lock-in as the storm raged, but as its owner surveyed the massive damage being inflicted outside his premises there was only one option: evacuation.

A report says €75m is needed to bring the only main road in West Cork up to a reasonable standard — but at the current rate of government investment it will take several generations before this is achieved.

New coastal defences will have to be erected in Co Cork and existing ones strengthened if a repeat of the damage inflicted by the storms of early January are to be avoided.

It may have been nervous relief, but John Murphy saw a funny side to the near-death experience he endured after being hit by a giant wave near Bantry Bay.

Up to 14,000 people could be in danger of being cut off if gale force winds and flooding were to damage the only bridge leading into a town in Co Cork.

More roads that ever before will be gritted in Co Cork if there is a repeat of the severe cold snap of Dec 2010 — and maps detailing the routes covered have just been posted online by the county council.

Only adults accompanying children 12 years of age or younger will be allowed into playgrounds in Co Cork as part of an attempt to prevent paedophiles hanging around such amenities.

The owners of a former convent, once earmarked for a multi-million euro redevelopment, will be taken to court if they refuse to make it safe.

The Government allocation for maintaining roads in Ireland’s largest county has fallen by more than half in four years, from €106m in 2009 to €48m this year.

Cork County Council is considering micro-chipping some road signs in an effort to stop metal thieves stealing them and putting motorists’ lives at risk.

Councillors have claimed a new junction layout under construction on the main Cork-Mallow road will end up causing fatal accidents instead of preventing them.

Cork county manager Martin Riordan is anxious to create more tourist jobs in West Cork — but said he worried about sending strangers down its only long and winding main road because its “unsafe” in many places and the National Roads Authority is not providing significant money to upgrade it.

A TOWN council in County Cork has been granted a court order to allow it make safe a derelict hotel which has been the subject of two arson attacks.

TWO multi-million euro recycling centres will open in North Cork next month, although one will not be permitted to receive household waste because of a Bord Pleanála directive.

A PLEA has gone out to landowners in north Cork to help Cork County Council get land to build local authority homes.