Major traffic restrictions will be in operation on Bank Holiday Monday as more than 9,000 competitors take to the streets in the annual Cork City Marathon.

Gardaí in Cork have carried out a number of raids on the homes of suspected drug dealers in an attempt to rid Cork City of a batch of unusually pure heroin, after the deaths of two men.

Two men are dead and two more are fighting for their lives in a Cork hospital amid fears that a lethal batch of high-purity heroin has hit the streets.