Donegal County Council confirmed it has approved planning permission for a €100 million project that the developer says will bring 1,000 jobs to Donegal town.
The move comes some months after the town lost 620 jobs with the closure of Hospira's medical devices plant and Magee's clothing manufacturing unit.
A site behind the Magee factory alongside the river Eske near the town centre is to be developed by London-based Keeney Construction, headed by Danny Keeney, a native of Drimarone, near Donegal town.
The project will include retail units, leisure facilities and 250 apartments. The 1,000 jobs will be filled by construction workers and employees of the shops and offices. Work on the scheme is expected to be under way by early summer.
Another development group, Westmeath-based Bennett Construction, said last night it was hoping that An Bord Pleanála would in the next few days give the green light for development of one of its sites in another part of the town where the anchor tenants would be Dunnes Stores.
That project is said to be worth €35 million and would create another 500 construction and retail jobs.
There have been more than six years of bickering between rival developers, with objections, delays and appeals to An Bord Pleanála in relation to a number of sites.
Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan, TD for the area, publicly expressed her frustration 10 days ago about the rows.
"It has got to stop", she said. "We are the talk of the entire country."
During the local radio interview, Ms Coughlan said that several times she and others in authority had tried to resolve differences between rival developers but failed.
People had become "more embedded". She added: "Naturally, people are entitled to object if they have a real objection. But competition is not a reason for objection."
However, a row continues over a Keeney objection to Bennett plans for another site on the edge of the town on the Ballybofey road where Atlantic Homecare is earmarked as the anchor tenant.
Plans for this site also include Government offices for 250 decentralised civil servants.
Locals fear those jobs have been jeopardised by the Keeney objection on the grounds that a rare mussel species on the adjoining river bed could be threatened by soil disturbances.
Keeney Construction defended its "democratic right" to object and pledged further objections if appropriate.
In a separate development, one of the county's unemployment black spots got a boost yesterday with the news that 40 jobs were to be created by a firm that would manufacture pitta bread, writes Chris Ashmore.
Pita Éireann Teo, located on the Gweedore Business Park in west Donegal, is being supported by €900,000 in funding from Údarás na Gaeltachta.