My Top 5 in no particular order, would be

• Eamon Ryan defending Willie O’Dea
• The Seanad debate on the social welfare provisions in the last Budget
• John O’Donoghue’s long goodbye
• The Seanad Select Committee on Members’ Interests and Ivor’s expenses claims
• Any Seanad Order of Business

Oh yes, and just to whet your appetite – the site is relaunching in September and have a raft of new features coming online in the Winter. Until then, we’re enjoying the Silly Season just as much as you are.

In the last few minutes, Dublin airport has joined Cork and Shannon in reopening to airline traffic. Shannon and Cork reopened earlier this morning. The IAA has announced the reopening:

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has announced that as a result of the ash cloud continuing to move away from the South East of Ireland, it is lifting restrictions within Irish airspace except for a block off the south coast of Ireland. This effectively means that Dublin Shannon and Cork Airports will be open for flights.

Flight restrictions into Northern Europe still prevail. Parts of British airspace will be closed until early tomorrow morning, barring a clearing of the ash cloud from the skies.

Update – 11:07am: Channel 4 is reporting that long-haul flights to Gatwick are being diverted to Glasgow, as Heathrow and Stansted remain closed until 1am tomorrow morning.

Update – 12:17pm: Quickfire status on European airspace that remains affected by the ash cloud.

Airspace over Northern France remains closed until 8pm. Dutch airspace closed until 6am tomorrow morning. Danish airspace will be closed until midnight. Belgian airspace will remain closed today.

Flights to and from Finnish airports have been affected. Finland is expecting a new cloud of volcanic ash to arrive tomorrow morning, so restrictions look set to continue into the weekend.

Krakow airport has closed as well. It was scheduled to host arrivals for the state funeral of former President Lech Kaczynski. Airspace in Poland, Austria, Latvia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic has been closed.

Call it Iceland’s ire, but the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has confirmed that Irish airspace will begin closing from 12pm. Flights to and from Dublin Airport will be grounded and severe disruptions to flights are expected at Cork, Shannon and Knock airports. It is not expected that flights will take off and land before much later tonight.

The IAA is sober about the Volcano Ash Cloud Monster:

The cause of the closure relates to the ash cloud from a volcano in Iceland, which is heading towards Ireland. It is not safe for aircraft to fly into volcanic dust as it can cause engines to shut down and other electrical faults. The volcanic ash cloud is also causing severe restriction in UK Airspace.

The IAA advises that customers contact their airline for further information. They are monitoring the situation and they will make another statement at noon.

Updates from the airlines:

Aer Lingus

Aer Lingus has cancelled all flights from Dublin. Customers need to search using their flight numbers on the Aer Lingus website. AL press release page doesn’t include live news alerts and it’s buried in the back of the site. Disappointing.

Update: Finally a news page on flight disruptions is live!

Ryanair

Customers should track flight status on Ryanair’s live flight information page, but it has announced the following disruptions:

• From 09:00hrs (local) no further Ryanair flights will operate to/from the UK
• From 10:00hrs (local) no further Ryanair flights will operate to/from Ireland
• From 11:30hrs (local) no further Ryanair flights will operate to/from Norway, Sweden and Denmark

Live Travel Information

Customers might find it useful to keep track of flight arrivals and departures on the Dublin Airport Authority website as well as AA Roadwatch’s alerts.

Photo via Aer Lingus

Sean Quinn continued his media blitz – we all saw him call Prime Time last week ya – in today’s Anglo-Celt. Quinn had a number of interesting things to say on the state of Quinn Insurance’s business to the Anglo-Celt’s Sean McMahon:

We will come up with a plan and we have more than one plan in mind… which will safeguard all the jobs in the area and get us back into motion. It might take a wee while to achieve that

….

If we don’t resume trading in the UK by next week, there will have to be lay-offs.

….

There has been innuendo suggesting there is something wrong here or something that has not been known. There is nothing there. It was dealt with in September/October 2008, when I was forced to resign as chairman.

Just back from the scene of the fire and grabbed the following video.

Windows in the building were blown out and emotions were running high in the crowd.

Luas red line services were disrupted with inbound trams ceasing at Smithfield. No reports of injuries at present.

More about the reshuffle to come, but check out Harney’s left hand. Broken. Wonder what happened in NZ. A spot of extreme sports for her birthday maybe?