Not saying I know why this happens but having flown a lot in the UK and Ireland, in helicopters and planes, ifr and vfr. Think a contributor to this is that in Ireland there is mostly very little controlled airspace, I mean you have Shannon and Cork in the south then Dublin in the north of the Rep. And by comparison to the rest of the country Dublin is a very very busy bit of airspace. Not saying that UK heli pilots are better or anything, because that would be just stupid, but I think that sudden business of airspaces sometimes catches all lines of pilots in Ireland out.