GOOD MORNING.
Here’s all the news that you need to know as you start your day.
1. Aer Lingus says it has fixed a “major” connection issue with the company’s online system, after it resulted in a raft of flights being cancelled at Dublin Airport.
The company cancelled 51 flights yesterday, mainly to and from Dublin and European and UK destinations.
But the company has advised customers that its flights for today are planned to “operate as normal” and customers are advised to arrive at the airports at the usual time for their scheduled flight.
The company also ruled out the possibility of a malicious attack by hackers as the cause of the failure, telling The Journal: “The incident was not the result of a cyber attack.”
2. One hundred years of a benign relationship with foreign powers has left Ireland vulnerable to cyber attacks, the State’s Cyber Chief has said.
It is rare to see National Cyber Security Centre director Dr Richard Browne out in public – the long term civil servant is notoriously secretive, Niall O’Connor writes in today’s lead story.
His journey to one of the most important jobs in Irish national security began in the early 2000s. Starting his career in the civil service.
Sources have said he very early identified cyber as a major area to focus on and at a time when it was a very niche interest.
3. Post-mortems have been carried out on a young boy and girl who died in a car fire in Co Westmeath on Friday.
Gardaí are treating the deaths as suspicious, and said they are “continuing to investigate all of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of a two-year-old infant boy and five-year-old girl”.
State Pathologist Dr Sally Anne Collis conducted post-mortem examinations on the children yesterday. The results of the post-mortems are not being released for operational reasons.
4. There is now little chance of a Russian breakthrough in Ukraine, Tom Clonan writes in his latest column.
The security analyst notes that is it now over six months, almost 200 days, since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
“In that time, Russian forces have increased their territorial gains to take all of the Luhansk Oblast and are consolidating modest advances in the Donetsk region.
“With the destruction of Mariupol, Putin has achieved a pyrrhic victory of sorts in securing a land corridor from the Crimean Peninsula to Russia.
“But, that’s it. Putin has failed to decapitate President Zelenskyy’s regime and has failed to break out of the Donbas to take key cities such as Kyiv, Kharkiv or to approach Odessa in the south.”
5. Inspired by his own family’s connection to Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork, Daniel Loftus has committed to compiling an online database that documents all the people who died in these institutions in Ireland.
The 18-year-old student started Project Infant in July and is currently going through records for various mother and baby homes, county homes and other institutions in a bid to compile a comprehensive list of all the mothers and children who died there.
Loftus, who lives in Cork, noted that his relative was lucky, but many other children did not survive.
In Bessborough alone, the burial place of over 850 children who died in the institution, or shortly after being transferred from there to hospital, remains unknown.
6. Contempt of court has hit the headlines this week as a teacher was at the centre of a breach of an order by a High Court Judge.
Enoch Burke appeared before court on Wednesday, refusing to purge his contempt and comply with the temporary injunction imposed by the order. As a result, he was returned to Mountjoy Prison.
The events have led to international coverage – and also many questions about how the Irish system operates. The law governing contempt is complex and multi-layered but it comes from the ancient system of Common Law.
7. Staying with the Enoch Burke case, research analyst Aoife Gallagher writes that trans rights issues are being used as a right-wing recruitment tool.
In her Voices piece, Gallagher notes that, as someone who researches extremism, “misinformation and the most feral parts of the internet, I’m often tagged in tweets from people who tell me that I, and the work I do, epitomise all things wrong with the world”.
This happened again on Wednesday, after Gallagher commented on “some of the woeful media coverage of the Enoch Burke contempt of court case”.
She writes: “Like many trends among the radical right-wing, campaigns to denigrate the trans community began bubbling up in the early 2010s deep in the sewage swamps of online message boards where users dedicate non-insignificant chunks of their lives to harassment and abuse, with trans people often the targets.
“From there, it joined forces with the evangelical Christian right in the US, who, in 2017, kick-started a campaign to frame the fight for trans civil rights as a threat to women, children and gay, lesbian and bisexual people.”
8. Colin Farrell has won the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival for playing a man rejected by his best friend in the Irish film The Banshees of Inisherin.
The film reunites Farrell with Brendan Gleeson and writer-director Martin McDonagh following their gangster comedy In Bruges.
Farrell said he was “utterly shocked and thrilled” to receive the gong for the role.
The film premiered in competition at the Italian festival, which also saw Cate Blanchett named Best Actress for her performance in Tar.
9. And finally, the weather.
Rain warnings are in place across the country today as many areas experience heavy downpours.
Met Éireann issued a number of rain warnings yesterday with a Status Orange rain warning in place for Cork and Waterford from 3am today until 3am tomorrow.
“Persistent heavy rainfall with isolated thunderstorms will cause disruption and localised flooding,” the forecaster warned.
A Status Orange rain warning has also been in place for Kerry since 3am, but that will end at 3pm today.
A Status Yellow rain warning has been in place for the rest of the country since 3am and will remain in place until 3am on Monday.
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