A man was called out of his house at Tory Top Rd during the Christmas holiday last year and was punched and bitten by a man who also threatened to burn him out of his home.

Building work on a €16m social housing scheme — one of the largest in the country — is finally under way in Cork City, more than a decade after flats on the site were demolished.

The top step of a stairs in a local authority house “moved” as a woman stood on it, causing her to fall down the stairs on her back and fracture two vertebrae in her neck.

The burglary last week of the Rooster pizzeria in Cork was described by the accused man’s own solicitor as “not in the rocket science department”.