A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Thousands petition over N21 road deaths
Thousands of people have signed a petition seeking the realignment of a treacherous stretch of road where five people have been killed in recent months.
The N21 realignment group is campaigning for changes to the road layout of the N21 at Barnagh, Newcastle West, Co Limerick, where three friends from the locality were killed in one of the recent tragic road fatalities.
The same stretch of road was also the scene of crashes that claimed the lives of a Latvian woman last month and a man from Co Kerry in May, both aged 21.
Campaigners have secured almost 3,000 signatures on their Facebook online petition while 2,000 written petitions have been collected locally.
There will be a meeting on Monday at 8pm in the Devon Inn Hotel in Templeglantine.
Kerry bypass still in need of names
Councillors in Kerry are struggling to decide on names for three roundabouts and the road which form the Castleisland bypass.
The €34 million project was the only new national roads project to get the go-ahead in the budget of 2009 and Jackie Healy-Rae, along with his sons councillors Michael and Danny, are claiming the credit for delivering the road which opened last month.
However it is taking some time to reach agreement on names. It is understood the Killarney councillors have put forward the late Moss Keane as the name for one of the roundabouts, and writer Con Houlihan for the road. These proposals have yet to meet with the agreement of Tralee area councillors.
Plan for road, rail museum rejected
Midwest tourism has suffered a blow with the rejection by An Bord Pleanála of plans for a road and rail museum in west Clare on road safety grounds.
The proposal was part of the West Clare railway tourist attraction where numbers have increased substantially since the return of the 117-year-old Slieve Callan steam engine in August last year. The West Clare railway operated between 1892 and 1962.
The proposal to rejuvenate the railway is the brainchild of entrepreneur, Jackie Whelan who said yesterday he was “very disappointed”.
Last December, Clare County Council gave the go-ahead to the plan but the National Roads Authority appealed.
Hydro energy plan turned down
An Bord Pleanála has turned down plans for an ambitious hydro energy storage scheme using a mountain lake reservoir on the peatland uplands of the Cork-Kerry border.
The site in the Derrynasaggart mountains is within the Republic’s largest candidate special area of conservation. Observers feared bog slides and water contamination.
Enerco Energy of Co Cork had planned to construct a 90MW pumped hydro energy storage scheme.