Plans by Lidl to replace its existing outlet in Fermoy with a large, new store have been approved, despite opposition from a rival supermarket owner.

SuperValu has been accused of using the planning laws to “thwart competition”, jeopardising employment, after the owner of one of the chain’s supermarkets in a Cork town objected to proposals to expand a rival store across the road from his business.

Multiple breaks in a mains pipe that left patients at a community hospital in Cork without water on several occasions have been described “as a national disgrace which wouldn’t happen in Outer Mongolia”.