The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has defended the appointment of a pro-fracking company to lead a research study into the practice in Ireland.

Despite objections from environmentalists, councillors have voted unanimously in favour of a contentious new access road to Killarney National Park.

Questions about housing density, traffic management, and potential environmental impact dominated the second day of an oral hearing on a new town plan for more than 5,000 houses, north of Cork City.

A Cork housewife yesterday told of her shock to learn two 150m-high turbines are to be built near her family home.

DEVELOPER Owen O’Callaghan has launched a blistering attack on the ESB for failing to change its dam operating procedures upstream of Cork city despite last year’s flooding disaster.

WE are writing as concerned residents of Ballyhea village, a small rural community on the Cork-Limerick border, just under the beautiful Ballyhoura Mountains.

CLONAKILTY’S Glebe House, on the town’s landmark Emmet Square, has had its Easter Rising.

IN the run-up to the general election it’s perhaps timely to consider the appalling lack of respect for our heritage which has been continually displayed by the Government, in particular since 2002 when Martin Cullen and his successor Dick Roche held the Environment portfolio.

THE owner of a holiday park pond in which a two-year-old baby drowned last summer has secured council backing for a fresh bid to have it filled in.

A NUMBER of schemes earmarked for small villages have been refused planning permission by Cork County Council.

The Ardee Point student accommodation scheme is to be operated by “luxury high end” UK-based student accommodation operator, NIDO Student.

A rural community in Co Cork is set to hold a protest on Sunday against Eirgrid plans to build a major electricity converter station in its midst.

Nama bosses have warned Finance Minister Michael Noonan they must have flexibility in deciding pay levels for key staff, if the agency is to deliver its €4.5bn house building programme.

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.

A government minister has defended the pre-election sod turning on the stalled €53m Cork event centre despite no building work on site four months on.

A site near Dublin Airport has been chosen for a sewage treatment plant, but campaigners have vowed to continue their fight against the proposed facility.