A SCHOOL car park that was the scene of a horrifying accident yesterday afternoon would have been full of children returning home had they not been kept back by teachers – to say a prayer.

THERE may be light at the end of a long tunnel for a Cork school waiting almost a decade for new accommodation – while children have been taught in expensive prefabs.

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

CORK’S city manager has called on the Government to commit funding to build an iconic bridge over the River Lee to help kick-start the city’s multi-billion-euro docklands regeneration project.

AN amended planning application is to be made directly to An Bord Pleanála for an €80 million private hospital in Cork city.

LIMERICK City Council has been called on to carry out an urgent inspection of the site of the on-hold Opera (Shopping) Centre in the city centre as may of the buildings there are over 100 years old and have been unoccupied for years.

A MAJOR building programme at its Dublin headquarters is essential if RTÉ is to maintain its position as the national broadcaster into the digital age, director general Cathal Goan told a Bord Pleanála hearing yesterday.

ALDI has been refused planning permission for a store in Kenmare, for the second time.

DEVELOPMENT and infrastructure in Cork is being stifled by the National Roads Authority (NRA) and Government agency inaction – at a time while Dublin is poised for infrastructure developments like Metro North and the DART underground which could cost billions.

THE six local authorities being examined as part of Environment Minister John Gormley’s planning review accounted for one in every three successful planning decision appeals in 2008.

A VILLAGE intends to fight plans to build one of the country’s longest sections of elevated motorway just yards from its quiet main street.

A TOWN bypassed by the Celtic Tiger is preparing to fight for the right to be linked to the new M20 Cork-Limerick motorway.

A PROPOSAL by a Killarney hotel to demolish 108 bedrooms and, instead, build shops and restaurants has been turned down by An Bord Pleanála.

ENGINEERING experts have told a Bord Pleanála oral hearing up to 70 lives could be saved over the next 30 years if a motorway is developed between Cork and Limerick.

AN Bord Pleanála has given the green light for the redevelopment of a “virtually derelict” site close to a major junction at the northern entrance to top tourist town Killarney.

ENVIRONMENT Minister John Gormley has insisted he is complying with the “letter of the law” in the way he is handling an incinerator project which he and his constituents oppose.

CORK’S political leaders have joined forces to secure Government funding for the design of a bridge which could unlock the city’s docklands for regeneration.

MAJOR planning and banking bills have been passed by the Dáil in contentious circumstances.

BUSINESS at the planning appeals board, An Bord Pleanála, almost halved in two years as the slump in building took hold.

SIX professors of paediatrics opposed to the selection of the Mater Hospital as the site for a new national children’s hospital have publicly challenged the right of their representative body to say it endorses the project.