An Bord Pleanála has refused to defer an oral hearing into proposals to build a €160m incinerator in Cork’s lower harbour.

An oral hearing into proposals to build a massive incinerator in Cork Harbour is expected to take at least three weeks to complete.

It is hoped that revised plans for a €180m road between Cork and Ringaskiddy will ease the fears of some residents’ associations who expressed major concerns with the initial blueprint when it was launched in October.

Plans by Supermac’s chief Pat McDonagh for a network of motorway forecourts have been dealt a blow after An Bord Pleanála refused permission for a rest stop on the Limerick to Gort road, outside Ennis.

A major wind farm straddling the uplands of the Cork-Kerry border, across 32 townlands, has been given the go-ahead by An Bord Pleanála.

The ports of Cork and Bantry handled nearly a million more tonnes of cargo last year than in 2014.

Housing support groups have broadly welcomed the Government’s housing plan, which has pledged to ramp up social housing supply, incentivise developers, and ease rental pressures.

The Government’s housing plan is set out in five specific pillars.

Simon Coveney has effectively promised to end homelessness and the housing emergency in one big swoop. The housing minister is betting his career on fixing the crisis.

A legal challenge has been mounted against a decision by An Bord Pleanála that a high-voltage underground cable connecting a €21m windfarm in Cavan to the national gird is an exempted development.

Increased activity at the Port of Cork saw profits increase by 79% to almost €4.5m last year.

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Tourists and locals were “frustrated” at the lack of progress on a western access road to Killarney National Park, the town’s mayor has said.

Irish Cement has launched a High Court challenge against an order allowing the compulsory purchase of its lands by the harbour at Foynes, Co Limerick.

The new planning minister said he will be “disappointed” if An Bord Pleanála approves the building of an incinerator in Co Cork but that he would find himself in court if he tried to intervene.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar said yesterday it was a “great regret and a great tragedy for the country” that the planned building of the new national children’s hospital took so long.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar talks a lot, both on and off the airwaves, but he isn’t often given to over-excitement. He exudes a calm demeanour amidst the maelstrom of political life.