Well I'm about to be made redundant by Virgin and had already filled out Ryanair's online application form.
If they now expect me to cough up £50 they can ram it. There is a glut of well qualified and experienced pilots coming on to the market and I can't believe that any of them will end up at Ryanair. If this is how they treat you when they are trying to entice you to work for them, what will they be like when you're actually in? (I think we already know the answer to that).
There are plenty of jobs still available, easyJet comes to mind, and I'm certainly not that desperate or stupid to take part in this cynical exercise.
I expect that Ryanair are going to miss an opportunity to get hold of some quality operators.