The underlying cause of this situation is that Ryanair are running an operation that is truly focused on low cost, not individual customer service, in a society where politicians pass legislation that is expensive for airline businesses to implement and where those same businesses are considered a legitimate target for specific taxation, which one could argue discriminates against the lower cost carriers.
This is great when you are dealing with the majority of the population, who are fit enough to cope.
When you come up against the minorities, the low cost focus gets you into trouble.
Although the cost per ticket of providing wheelchairs is said (by an organization with an interest) to be only a couple of pence per pax, that equals £3.78 for a full 738. So what you may ask, well multiply that across 200 flights per day (for sake of argument) and that becomes £756, which when scaled up across 365 days is £275,940.
If you have built your organizational ethos on driving cost out of the business, this is anathema.
Now if you consider that the UK government taxes your Ryanair flights heavily, because the tax is arbitary, as a manager you would resist any further expenses that impact on your business model 'low cost.'
I am sure that the company took legal advice before resisting the case and they lost. We shall see if there is an appeal. O'Leary's way of answering Tim Sebastian (On BBC Hardtalk) was to discuss complaints at the aggregate level and to make it clear by implication that the company is focused at the aggregate (24M pax) level, rather than at the individual. No doubt in this case, Ryanair believes that it can sustain growth even if some are offended and choose other carriers.
The paradox in this situation is that we, as a society, want to have low cost travel and we also elect governments who bring in legislation that drives up the cost of travel.
Anyone who watcher O'Leary on Hardtalk recently could see that he has no interest in individual cases, just the overall numbers, which are based on minimum cost operation - that is why the disabled passenger scenario is difficult for Ryanair.
I am not trying to be an apologist for Ryanair nor to offend other posters such as BoeingMEL, who have posted with sincerity and passion. I am just pointing out that the situation is not as black and white as some have said it is.