High altitud,
It's nothing to do with being a better pilot. It's simple economics. The IAA will validate a licence from anywhere in the world subject to the applicant doing the 14 JAR exams. However, there is a dispensation of a year before the exams need to be done. The Irish immigration authorities will also issue illegal work permits for these pilots (illegal, as work permits should only be granted to non-EU citizens if it is proven that there are no suitable applicants in the EU, which is patently not the case. Although perhaps ryanair have managed to prove there aren't enough people prepared to work for slave wages).
Hence ryanair take contractors from around the world, work them for a year until the dispensation expires and then discard them.
For ryanair this has many advantages: the pool of pilots they can draw on is effectively worldwide. More supply keeps wages down and as many of these pilots are from poorer countries, what are low wages to us are high to them. The vastly disparate group also reduces cohesiveness and unity, thus reducing the liklihood of forming an effective union.
Make no mistake, the employment market is global and too many people are prepared to work for little enough that we will all suffer eventually.
The only remedies are an end to the banana republic that is authority in Ireland or persuading the scab labour in ryanair to join a union.
And are you sure about the superiority of U2 compared to FR.
Are you for real? As an ex-ryanair colleague said to me recently: "ryanair isn't as bad you think, it's ten times worse."