PLANS by Met Éireann to relocate the air monitoring part of its operations in south Kerry onto Valentia Island to avail of a cleaner environment have been appealed to An Bord Pleanála.

THE 10-year battle over Ireland’s first toxic waste incinerator raises questions about the decision-making processes, a leading environmental law expert has said.

AFTER a decade-long struggle through the planning and legal system, the key figures fighting plans for the country’s first toxic waste incinerator were expecting more bad news yesterday.

LOCALS in the Cork Harbour village of Ringaskiddy have been celebrating that an incinerator won’t be built in their midst.

IT was at the kitchen tables of family homes in Monkstown, Cobh and Ringaskiddy that the 10-year campaign to stop two incinerators being built in Cork Harbour was spearheaded.

YESTERDAY’S ruling by An Bórd Pleanála against a toxic waste incinerator proposed for Cork harbour may deter some investors but the fact that it took ten years to reach this point may deter even more.

WEST Clare got a major jobs boost yesterday after the green light was given for a €5 million mixed-use development which will provide 120 jobs.

A PROPERTY developer who has lodged a complaint against three senior county council officials has insisted it is not acceptable for members of the same local authority to conduct an internal investigation.

IT WAS most unfair that a Kerry snail was being blamed for holding up a major road into the county from Cork, a council meeting in Tralee has heard.

THE ruin hugs the rugged shore straddling the bays of Ballinskelligs and Waterville. Once upon a long ago it was a hotel. Today it sits in an overgrown field, a three-storey concrete skeleton, like something lifted from a bomb-ravaged city. You can walk up and look inside the walls at the rubble, the moth eaten furniture, the sepia-toned dreams pummelled by time.

IT LOOKS like we never learn in this country, no matter what. What other country grants planning permission for a €460 million development that depends for its financial success on the inclusion of something that is not legal?

A PROMINENT casino consultant has questioned the sustainability of the proposed €460 million casino and leisure complex in rural Tipperary — saying he personally would not invest in such a project.

SO An Bord Pleanála has given the go-ahead for the construction of a €460 million, 800-acre “Las Vegas-style” sports and leisure complex in Co Tipperary complete with a 500-bedroom five-star hotel, a 6,000sq m casino, an all-weather racecourse, a greyhound track and a golf course.

BUSINESSMAN Richard Quirke unveiled his grand vision for what was quickly dubbed a “Las Vegas-style” development in October 2009 — not the most auspicious of times for the start of a €460 million investment in the middle of Co Tipperary.

SURFERS have thrown into doubt Clare County Council’s plans for a €6 million pier at Doolin for summer 2012.

AN Taisce was last night labelled a secret society.

THE most derided pillar in Irish public administration, the quango, has come to symbolise what is wrong with our bureaucracy.