Airbus_girl, sorry its an all-inclusive Irish term, please don't take any offence!
Again, some very detailed responses here and much appreciated as it takes a lot of time to formulate and type them up! Hopefully someone will be as lucky as me to find this resource that is in the same boat as me.
There seems to be a few contrasting opinions on buying shares in a plane but the general consensus, is one shouldn't buy one before gaining their PPL. The initial reason I mentioned the shares in a group was because it was one of the first things I saw when reading up on flying planes privately, and I assumed its cost would be less and I'll be honest cost is what I would be wary of as I am in no way wealthy and still relatively young at 26 so its something I have to think about.
tuscan, after some frantic searching the internet to find out how to ring canada(didnt realise it was the same code as the states)I rang them up last night and found the guys to be very helpful. Works out about £100 a lesson with an instructor and only £70 for solo flights which is great! Its a pity I didnt look into this last year
Reading the responses though has made me more determined to get my PPL and just go for it. Some of the things mentioned above e.g.: non-equity groups I will have to look into at a later point, but its good to know options exist that are cheaper than renting from schools - at the end of the day circumstances change and if i invest the time and money into it i want to be sure its something that I can still do if/when those circumstances change.
One final question, does anyone know much about the flying scene in Ireland?