DFC if I may correct one or two things and we obviously read most of the rest of your posts with a very large pinch of sea salt.
Not all of us sat on our hands during privatisation. Some of us worked very long hours over years to influence what was happening. When it finally happened 10 years after initial proposal then it was a different beast. Changed very substantially by the sensible arguments put forward by ATCOs, particularaly those from Scotland.
I completely disagree with your interpretation of the Arran comments. You also link it to the debate about services in the FIR which I don't believe were any of his comments.
ScACC ATCOs give the very highest levels of service they can realistically offer. My understanding is that there were a considerable number of incidents where the aircraft types and performance were so different that it was nearly impossible to give timely avoiding action to participating traffic and still have any assurance of achieveing the desired separation. A radar information service is all that can be realistically provided. If you are looking for safety then make a comparison of the number of serious incidents inside the airways system and those outside airways for the flights going to or from Aberdeen. There must be a multiple of 10 involving aircraft outside airways and only a percentage of those are working ScACC under a RIS.
You somewhat illogically say that the military do not recognise advisory routes but you want on to get a RAS anyway. Your first statement is wrong. They do recognise ADRs and give advice on how to cross and what service is appropriate. If you read the Airprox reports you will see the Strike Command comments regularly criticise military pilots if they have not obtained a service from a Radar Unit whilst crssing ADRs. As said above even if ScACC could offera RAS that would not solve the problem.
You talk about the EU funded radar. That information is not immediately available but should not be difficult to find out. You ask how much did NATS pay ? Well they obviously paid nothing for the Irish radar but just as the Irish are going to get access to NATS radar for this area, NATS could equally have provided the service with access to the Irish radar to supplement the coverage in the area.
I for one have no fear of competition. But we have here a state run ATC agency who are being given undisclosed funding for a service to compete with the only privatised ATC service in Europe. The parallels with Ryanair and Charlois seem stark. Maybe those European commisioners who judged the aid to Ryanair to be illegal will have a view on this situation.
I didn't see you answer Arran's point about making up the lost revenue. Your airline and every other airline having a service from NATS will have to contribute to the gap in funding.
As far as airspace is concerned Scotland does not have any of it's own. The UK deals with this issue. Maybe Whipping boy could quote exactly where his view comes from about so many miles off the UK coast. I do not believe this to be true. My understanding is that, unlike the international airspace of the North Atlantic, the airspace around the UK is divided by international Governmental agreement. In this case the participating Governments have agreed some principles so Arran is more correct than you when he says that airspace is being "given away". He is certainly correct when he says jobs are being given away. Ireland will have more and after a period of evaluation the UK will have less.
I have said here before that this matter ( the North Atlantic not the North Sea) is being underestimated. There are very interesting principles and precedents here which are being set. The rest of Europe is only awakening to Single Sky. In a few years we might see huge changes to services, routes and charges around Europe. I wouldn't predict that the smaller airlines will be better off and maybe this is an example.
