Planning permission has been granted for a large solar farm around 1.7km outside Cobh, despite the objections of some local residents.

Gay icon Panti Bliss got a dose of the “planning blues” yesterday as Dublin City Council refused planning retention for her contentious 3.5m-high illuminated sign at the landmark Panti Bar venue.

Cork County Council has approved planning permission for a major retail development to be built at the dilapidated former Seafield Textiles building in Youghal, Co Cork.

Ambitious goals will attract billions in investment, create thousands of jobs, and regenerate coastal communities, writes David Connolly.

The owner of Fr Ted Crilly’s parochial house has hit out at fresh Government plans to construct visitor facilities at Mullaghmore in the Burren.

The finances of the Health Service Executive are to come under fresh scrutiny as it has already overspent its budget by €145m in the first quarter of 2012.

MAYO’S Conor Mortimer is contemplating undergoing knee surgery which could rule him out for the majority — if not all of — the 2011 season.

THE planned new €800 million M20 will become the first motorway in Ireland to be barn owl-friendly.

AN BORD Pleanála has given the green light for work to begin on the long-awaited Waterford to Kilcullen dual carriageway, despite close to 20 major objections from land and home owners.

A PUBLIC fixation linking the late Charles J Haughey to the former Baldoyle Racecourse wrecked a developer’s ambition to build houses there, the Mahon Planning Tribunal heard yesterday.

Dublin City Council has told a company owned by developer, Johnny Ronan, to keep the noise down in its planned new ‘live-work’ venture at Mr Ronan’s luxury Embassy House in Dublin 4.