The decision follows an application before Christmas, to Cork County Council, which sought permission for the expansion of the facility on an IDA industrial estate.

EMC Information Systems International provided further information to planners late in January. The proposal is for a new, four-storey office building, single-storey data centre, and an extension to an existing energy centre. The plans also provide for a four-storey car park and the addition of a single-storey deck to the existing car park at the site, just west of Ballincollig.

The Baltimore Harbour Hotel, in the west Cork village of Baltimore, is the subject of a major plan for redevelopment. An application to Cork County Council, in the past fortnight, seeks to change the use of the buildings from a 56-bedroom hotel-and-leisure centre to a community leisure and residential facility.

The plan, submitted by Zontide Limited, includes 12 apartments in place of hotel accommodation in one of the three buildings, and two semi-detached houses and four terraced houses in two other hotel buildings, which would also be partially demolished and extended.

The local authority in Cork City has approved changes to plans for the redevelopment of an older scheme of cottages, near the old Sunbeam factory site, in the northside suburb of Blackpool.

An application in late 2014, from Barcrest Developments Ltd, sought permission from the city council to change site boundaries and make minor changes to site layouts and house designs.

The development, first proposed in a 2007 application, by Waterpark Construction Ltd, would demolish 18 terraced houses at Millfield Cottages, off Redforge Road. In their place would be constructed 18 terraced homes, with a floor area of 1,300sq m, increasing from the 1,100sq m of the existing houses.

Changes to the internal layouts at the Douglas Village Shopping Centre have been given the go-ahead by Cork County Council.

This allows for changes to plans permitted under previous applications, ranging from 2006 to last year, for the centre in the southside Cork suburb. Canmont Ltd, associated with the Love family of developers, lodged the proposal in December, 2014, to relocate an information kiosk, extend the bank unit into the mall and into parts of two existing units, to add 31 square metres net to the bank area.

It further proposed amalgamating and subdividing six other units, or parts of them, to create four retail mall units and a single retail unit. Some changes to exits in the shopping centre also featured in the plan, which had been the subject of a further information submission from the applicants. The plan was granted permission in late February. Recent media reports have suggested Donnybrook Fair, with five Dublin food stores, may open in one of Douglas’s two shopping centres.

An Aldi store proposed to be developed on a former Youghal Carpets site, in the east Cork town of Youghal, is the subject of third-party appeals, after a recent grant of planning permission.

Cork County Council granted its approval for the project in late January, in relation to plans submitted last July by Aldi Stores (Ireland) Ltd.

In the application, which was later the subject of a further information request from planners, it was proposed to demolish four workshops, a derelict shed, and warehouse on the site, between New Catherine Street and Store Street.

It was also to clear the site by the partial demolition of a warehouse known formerly as Youghal Carpets, and to provide new facades to the same facility, to facilitate construction of a single-storey discount food store of 1,500 sq m and provision for 81 parking spaces.

The decision of the council is the subject of appeals from three third parties, and from Aldi in relation to conditions of planning, with An Bord Pleanála due to issue an order on the outcome by late June.