A NEW national conference centre could inject up to €50 million into the economy, Tourism Minister John O'Donoghue said yesterday.

AN BORD Pleanála yesterday gave the go-ahead to a controversial landfill in east Galway despite strong local community objections.

OBJECTORS opposing the building of a motorway close to the Hill of Tara have pledged to take a series of legal challenges to ensure the route is changed.

WELL, it is now official. Waterford business leaders have, through the chamber of commerce, declared Waterford the city of Luddites.

Neans McSweeney, South-East Correspondent

WAS 2005 the year when the craziness went truly mad? Or made? Walford, a Dublin Shrewsbury Road house, sold in summer for a mind-blowing €58 million, on 1.8 acres, and may or may not have development potential.

IT may be 10 years before Limerick has its own waste incinerator, a Bord Pleanála hearing into a proposed 98-acre super dump was told yesterday.

RESIDENTS lodged an appeal with An Bord Pleanála yesterday against plans for another apartment block in a Cork suburb.

ANGRY residents at the site of the country’s first commercial toxic waste incinerator vowed last night to take their battle to the High Court.

FILM-MAKER Neil Jordan is for a second time objecting to a waterfront holiday village almost next door to his West Cork home.

A MULTI-MILLION euro hotel and holiday home development that could have created more than 100 jobs has been given the thumbs down by An Bord Pleanála.

CONTROVERSIAL ex-minister Ivor Callely may be forced to reconvert back into a garage a guest room development at his plush countryside holiday home in West Cork.

NOBODY wants to live beside an incinerator or a dump. Yet, there is growing pressure on local authorities to provide such controversial facilities as Ireland struggles to cope with a mountain of toxic, commercial and domestic waste.

PLANS for a second private hospital in Waterford have been thrown into doubt by a sole objection which could delay the project.

HOMEOWNERS in some of the country’s most expensive neighbourhoods are contributing to a surge in planning appeals by attempting to build lucrative developments in their back gardens.

IN the David v Goliath struggle to protect the 5,000-year-old Tara landscape from a section of the M3 tolled motorway, it would seem that Goliath has won, at least for now.

A UCC PLAN to create an outreach university has been rejected by An Bord Pleanála.

ENVIRONMENT Minister Dick Roche yesterday warned local authorities that it will be unacceptable to increase charges to the public in order to fund pay increases due next year under benchmarking and national wage agreements.

WORK on the building of a new pier in Cromane, a well-known fishing and seaside area of Co Kerry, could also help resolve an age-old erosion problem in the area.

RESIDENTS living beside Adamstown — Dublin’s newest town — want guarantees that the area won’t become the State’s biggest traffic jam.