I take a strict view on Christmas. It begins on December 24 but not before. It concludes on January 6.

Dublin City Council planners said that while they noted that the proposed supervised injecting facility was “national policy”, their job was to determine its impact on the “vitality and viability” of the area where it was to be located.

Dublin City Council planners said that while they noted that the proposed supervised injecting facility was “national policy” their job was to determine its impact on the “vitality and viability” of the area where it was to be located.

The first pedestrians have walked, cycled and sat on Cork’s newest bridge.

Traders in Cork city centre have called for “open, clear and honest consultation” before any decisions are made on the location of a supervised drug injection centre.

A study has identified Cork’s quays and nearby streets as blackspots for drug injecting and as possible sites for a supervised injecting centre.

Viewing points have been set up on Cork’s northern quays for people to watch the city’s newest bridge be lifted into place in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Fashion and homeware retailer Laura Ashley is to leave its long-held Cork city centre shop on St Patrick’s Street, after 30 years trading there at the Merchants Quay Shopping Centre: it is moving instead to suburban retail park.

"You want to get people off drugs there needs to be rehabilitation, is there rehabilitation in Ireland at the moment? Is it sufficient? No."

The planned new State-funded injecting centre for chronic heroin and cocaine addicts in Dublin’s inner city is to cater for around 60 addicts each day and is to open at 6.30 each morning.

A motorist using the Merchants Quay car park in Cork City caught a member of staff by the throat, video-recorded him and threatened to knock him out.

A 29-year-old man is being treated in hospital following a stabbing in Dublin last night.

Transport chiefs in Cork have promised a “soft and subtle” reboot of the controversial car ban on the city’s main street, insisting the measure is vital to avoid chronic traffic congestion and secure up to €200m in investment in public transport.

Half-price parking deals, an extended park and ride bus service, and new city centre set-down areas are part of a package of measures planned as part of the reintroduction of the controversial afternoon car ban on Cork City’s main street.

OVER €100m has been invested off-market, across three low-key retail deals, in the heart of Cork City, at Opera Lane, Merchants Quay/Marks & Spencers Shopping Centre, and St Patrick’s St.

"She was allowed to be herself here."

A primary school and local residents have failed in their efforts to prevent Dublin Simon Community from securing planning permission for a 70-bed recovery centre for homeless drug addicts and alcoholics at Usher’s Island in the inner city.

The tens of thousands expected to attend the first inter-county games at the new Páirc Uí Chaoimh this weekend have been advised to arrive early and to walk to the stadium, if possible, to avoid traffic congestion.

LEADING Irish investment and hotel asset owners Tetrarch Capital plans two Cork city centre hotels in side-by-side 19th century stone warehouse building being sold by Cork City Council, who had acquired them from Nama.

One of Cork’s most historic hotels, the Metropole, is poised for a €50m investment that will double its rooms tally, add shops at ground level, and see the construction of another three-star hotel to be called The M.

A man has escaped from garda custody after been refused bail on a charge of escaping garda custody.

Dealmakers behind the €14 million purchase of the bulk of the City Quarter investment in Cork city centre from Nama have emerged as the just-re-branded MC2 Accountants, on behalf of private investors.

Joao Carvalho (28) died due to blunt force trauma to the head, after he was knocked during a Total Extreme Fighting (TEF) contest at the National Boxing Stadium last April.

The location of two, 19th century stone warehouse buildings (plus an investment property currently let out as an adult shop,) on a central 0.42 of a Cork city centre acre put up for imaginative redevelopment is what underpins an asking price close to €2m, for the property and site’s owners and vendors, Cork City Council.

Taxes should be slapped on Dublin's 35,000 empty homes as the number of rough sleepers in the capital soars, homelessness campaigners have said.

8am

Bus Éireann has confirmed that it curtails its night service to a part of Cork City’s northside due to antisocial behaviour in the area.

While bridges have featured in famous war films The Bridge over the River Kwai and a Bridge Too Far, a former mayor of Limerick yesterday warned battle lines are being drawn up over a planned €15m “bridge to nowhere” on the Shannon.

THE banners are up along Cork city’s St Patrick’s Street for today’s St Patrick’s Day parade — and, selling agents DTZ Sherry FitzGerald have just this week managed to snake in a large ‘Sold’ sign on a high-profile building on this retail thoroughfare which bears the saint’s name.

The €90m office development proposed this week for Cork City’s quays show a mark of confidence in the second city’s employment prospects — much of it foreign direct investment-sourced jobs — as is evident in recent jobs announcements and arrivals such as Tyco.

Gardaí had to go to a Mass in Cork City to arrest a man who was so drunk he was a source of danger in the church.

The investment arm of the Davy Group has made a further retail swoop on Cork city’s Patrick Street, having bought the Moderne last year for circa €4-5 million in an off-market deal.

WITH a pick-up in fortunes at the northern end of Cork City’s retail thoroughfare, Patrick Street, a new sales push and a new agent are behind the vacant corner property at No 125 Patrick Street/Lavitts Quay, by St Patrick’s Bridge.

Private cars could be banned from Cork City’s main street by the middle of next year under radical traffic plans due to be published tomorrow.

Hundreds of thousands of euro have been invested in cycle lanes and in Cork another €2m has been invested in the Coca Cola bike scheme. But why do potholes still abound, asks Caroline Delaney.