Gashcan
Nigel - does it matter if the lights were on? (Report states that Airtours say yes, Ryanair say no - who cares?) - point is that due to an error, Ryanair entered a runway which was being used by another aircraft for take-off.
You are obviously not a (professional) pilot, or if one, one that follows your username well <G>
If you were a (professional) pilot, you would know that in order to prevent accidents, one places as many safety layers between yourself and an accident as possible.
You seem content to write off the whole thing as the controllers error, and that if the error had not been made, then no problem.
The rest of the world works by accepting there will be errors made. We try to avoid these, but we then put additional layers in to mitigate errors that are made. For instance, putting your lights on for the takeoff roll will increase the likliehood of your being seen... Now whether they were on or off was not considered worth pursuing by the AAIB (?), but the point is there - in the "waffle" as someone called it. Another layer was a good listen out by the Airtours skipper. Another layer was the ATC automated tool - which did "go off", but without an aural alert, proved useless here... but add an aural alert and another good layer can be built. Bear in mind in some circs some layers won't work e.g. night / poor vis.
Your points about the apparent lack of reporting by the Ryanair crew speaks volumes if true... when added to the excessive taxi speed and poor lookout...