An eight-year-old girl died and her mother was last night fighting for her life in hospital following a horrific crash in West Cork yesterday afternoon.

Cork County Council officials are to write to the National Roads Authority (NRA) seeking funding to make safe a 1.2km stretch of road in West Cork which has been the scene of several fatal accidents in recent years.

Bad weather and the possibility of oil on the road may have played their part in a crash which claimed the life of a 64-year-old drapery assistant.