Interesting points raised here – my follow up is this:
To the moderators
Interesting that you chose to move this thread to ‘Private Flying’; but if I can get some useful guidance on this forum then I am fine with that. However this is in fact in reference to a Public Transport aircraft operating Public Transport flights for hire or reward by an Air Transport Undertaking using professional pilots.
To IO540
The country is not really relevant and as Droopystop indicates it is perhaps a global issue.
Night flight under IFR is in fact an ICAO standard and the majority of the world complies with it. It is the USA, France, Australia and New Zealand amongst others that are the 'odd ones out'.
In our case we have all the equipment required for night flying under IFR outside controlled airspace and inside controlled airspace for flight other than for Public Transport, except we have the restriction on the C of A.
To dublinpilot
In the country I am using for the purposes of this discussion, and I suspect in many others, ATC will not give you a Special VFR clearance if you don’t legally require one.
But even if you got a Special VFR clearance would you then be ‘a VFR operating on a Special VFR clearance’ or ‘IFR operating on a Special VFR clearance?