ENVIRONMENTALIST Vincent Salafia was ordered by the High Court yesterday to pay a legal costs bill, which could be over €600,000, arising from his unsuccessful challenge to the proposed routing of the M3 motorway near the Hill of Tara.

HITTING an international market with a world-class property bristling with security features on the day the US attacked Iraq may be a blow to the best-laid sales plans of the French owners of an Irish mansion.

A PERIOD home in Clonakilty, Co Cork, has character and aspect - and a half-acre site with development potential that underpins its €1m asking price with local agent Ray O’Neill, of the Sherry Fitzgerald franchise.

AND they’re off. The first new homes launch of 2005 around Cork city is a batch of just under 100 homes at Ashmount Court, Silversprings.

UCC bosses are to resubmit plans for a multi-million euro 200-student outreach centre at the Mardyke, despite their shock at having the project turned down by An Bord Pleanála.

IT'S just as well that Dubya's attention was focused on blowing up balloons for his inauguration party yesterday, or he might have noticed that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was trying to slip a fast one by him.

OPPOSITION parties called on Health Minister Micheál Martin yesterday to stop "washing his hands" of incineration after An Bord Pleanála gave the go-ahead to the country's first toxic waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy in Cork.

A ROW over a county council’s insistence that a new housing scheme be restricted to occupants who speak Irish is to go to an oral hearing next week — where evidence will have to be given through Irish.

ENVIRONMENT Minister Martin Cullen has denied opposition claims that he has insufficient expertise to make planning decisions.

CORK’S new homes market is about to surge - but prices are still expected to grow by up to 10% during 2003.

A BLUEPRINT for the multi-billion euro redevelopment of Cork’s north docks area, that includes 1,500 new homes and a 5,000-seat national events centre, was launched yesterday.

THE South Gate is the gateway to the medieval city of Cork. The present bridge was built as early as 1713.

THIS morning, as leading GAA officials gather in Croke Park for the official opening of the redeveloped Canal End and Hogan Stands, they won’t need reminding the financial outlook is not quite so rosy — with current borrowings in the order of €70 million and no indication when the last phase can be tackled or how it can be paid for.

SUPERMARKET giants Tesco yesterday sparked a possible price war after it opened its first petrol filling station.

A MAJOR marina plan which will transform a coastal Waterford region has cleared a final planning hurdle.

As China welcomes the year of the monkey, maybe the people of Ringaskiddy should mark the year of the three monkeys. Bureaucracy can see no evil, speak no evil and certainly hear no evil insofar as what it can dump on the community there is concerned.

NEW High Court procedures to speed up inordinate and expensive delays in planning cases will soon be introduced, Environment Minister Dick Roche indicated yesterday.