In cases which have "far-reaching implications for the peat harvesting industry" two companies have asked for permission to appeal the rejection of their challenges to decisions of An Bord Pleanála that their activities are no longer exempt development.

It is the first time Cork City Council will have issued such fines, which are designed to motivate the development of vacant sites and to reduce land hoarding.

Plans by one of Munster’s leading hotel groups to break into the Dublin market have suffered a major setback after its proposal for a €50m new five-star facility was rejected.

Cabinet ministers and the Attorney General privately expressed concerns that €130,000-a-year directly elected mayors in Cork, Limerick, and Waterford could become too powerful, a confidential memo reveals.

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.

Concern has been expressed about a windfarm project in Co Cork which will feature the same type of turbine which collapsed on a mountainside in the North last week.

Major design changes to Cork’s €140m flood defence scheme have been unveiled that will see demountable flood defences, rather than walls, used to protect the most historic city centre areas.

The Taoiseach and two government ministers have been warned they face a grassroots revolt over controversial plans to extend Cork’s city boundary.

Dunnes Stores has won a High Court order halting moves to place a closed shopping centre building in Limerick city centre on an official register for vacant sites

OPPONENTS of a planned €40 million private hospital on the outskirts of Ennis yesterday outlined their opposition to the project at an oral hearing.

An architect denied harassing neighbours when they built an extension to their home by playing music so loud it was like an earthquake, staring at them, or kicking a football repeatedly against a wall.

A GROUP of Killarney pharmacists has lodged yet another objection to a local GP-led healthcare centre.

The planned building of an incinerator at Ringaskiddy is the wrong option because of new binding EU recycling targets, Labour’s Sheila Nunan has warned.