An historic home on Cork’s northside is in line to become a medical clinic after a recent grant of planning permission.

Dairygold’s €117m investment in its Mallow and Mitchelstown sites will give the north Cork co-op the processing capacity it needs for next year’s abolition of EU milk quota restrictions, said the company’s chief executive, Jim Woulfe.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny is to visit north Cork on Friday where he will lay the foundation stone for Dairygold’s new €83.5m milk processing plant in Mallow.

Dairygold has reported a record operating profit of €27.3m for 2013, up 33%, with revenues up 16% to €847m, and a record milk intake up 4% to 959m litres.

Dairygold members’ plans to increase their milk output by 57% by 2020 are at the core of the co-op’s ambitious post-quota strategy.

CHEESE and whey will figure prominently in a €286m capital investment by milk processors, which includes €114m of Dairy Investment Fund grant assistance from the Government.

Two people were being questioned tonight after the terrified family of a bank official were held hostage overnight at their north Co Dublin home.

THE Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is investigating a second chemical spill at the giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) plant in the past week.

A man in his 60s has died after the car he was driving overturned in Co Meath yesterday evening.

A €70 MILLION housing, hotel and business development planned for the small Limerick town of Hospital is set to create 300 jobs.