The Prime Time programme showed that councillors who vote for reckless rezoning, and who complain about the lack of other powers for themselves, are, through their actions, ultimately offering the strongest argument yet for the abolition of local government structures in Ireland.

RETAIL giant Marks and Spencer & has shelved plans for a Tralee store after An Bord Pleanála gave the thumbs-down at the weekend.

BONO is not a man known to be short of words but he may have met his match in an opponent to his hotel expansion plans.

THE High Court was yesterday asked to dismiss a challenge by Ryanair to the planning permission for a second terminal at Dublin Airport.

CONCERNS were raised yesterday about health and safety aspects of a €400 million gas terminal to be built on a site between Tarbert and Ballylongford, on the Kerry bank of the Shannon Estuary.

WHEN I was a child growing up in suburban Galway in the late 1970s and early 1980s, disposing of our waste was a relatively simple matter.

AN Bord Pleanála’s recent decision to grant permission for a toxic waste incinerator at Ringsend in Dublin effectively allows the plant project to begin.

AN EMBATTLED John Gormley last night strenuously rejected claims he told lies regarding the Poolbeg incinerator in a bitter war of words with one of his constituency rivals.

ONE of the country’s busiest ports will lodge a planning application today for a €190 million container terminal in Cork harbour.

IT MAY seem ironic, but developers of golf links in sensitive coastal areas are hoping Environment Minister John Gormley will listen more favourably to their case than Fianna Fáil ministers have in recent years.

HARBOUR residents are facing huge legal bills in a David versus Goliath planning battle with the port of Cork.

AS shocking as was the picture painted in your front-page story (‘63 days: 63 lives lost’, March 3), it had special resonance for people living in the aptly named Blind Gate side of Kinsale in Co Cork.

A CALL for a crackdown on illegal quarrying in Kerry was made yesterday, after it emerged six further quarries operating without permission had come to the county council’s attention.

HOME furnishings retailer IKEA will launch the first phase of its recruitment campaign for its Dublin store at the end of March with the announcement of more than 40 management positions.

WHAT you see won’t necessarily be what you get, with a couple of Cork bungalows up for sale in prized locations.

CONTROVERSIAL plans to build a €250 million co-location hospital in Cork were approved last night.

A CHERISHED city green has been saved from development.

AN ORAL hearing into a proposed animal rendering plant in Tipperary which would be located close to a world-famous, horse-training establishment will get under way next Tuesday.

DUBLIN AIRPORT is to get busier after An Bord Pleanála granted permission for the main passenger terminal to be expanded.

RESIDENTS living close to the site of a proposed bio-energy plant in south Tipperary yesterday voiced concerns about the development of a large-scale plant dealing with animal by-products in their locality.