Munster Express Online

Significant opposition against the unification of Waterford County Council and Waterford City Council has been lodged in thirty submissions to the Waterford Local Government Committee set up to review local government in the county.

Waterford County Council has set up an in-house ‘Unfinished Housing Estates’ team to deal specifically with unfinished ‘ghost’ housing estates across the county, a Council meeting heard in Dungarvan.

Two men have been arrested in connection with a series of recent aggravated burglaries at homes in St John’s Park and Cherrymount and at the Carry Out in Kilcohan and an armed robbery outside the Bank of Ireland in Lisduggan.

Waterford City Council passed the 2012 budget estimates for the City on Monday night, despite a significant drop in funding from central government to the local authority.

The Annual Christmas Day Dinner for those in need, under the auspices of the Knights of St Columbanus, will take place as usual this year at 12.30pm in St Joseph’s School, Parnell Street, Waterford. This function has now been running without a break for over 70 years. Any person, and especially those who are far from home, who would not otherwise enjoy a Christmas dinner on the 25th will be made very welcome. It is completely free to the men and women attending. Just turn up at 12.30pm.

Devout Christians were most upset this week when it emerged that vandals had stolen the statue of the Baby Jesus from the Nativity Crib outside the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity in Barronstrand Street. This was the first year that the crib was erected outside the Cathedral in the heart of the city centre and it attracted much favourable comment even from those not so religiously inclined.

Home burglaries, many involving elderly people being terrorised by armed raiders, have become an almost daily occurrence across the city in recent months.

A motion for Waterford City to develop a smartphone application was enthusiastically welcomed at Monday’s City Council meeting.