I'm in the same situation and it is a bit irritating.
I want to become a FI, but i don't need the IR because i don't want to keep it current for a couple of years since i don't need it. Heck i don't even need a ME rating until the FTO wishes me to have it. I wish it could be like the FAA system where you take everything seperately.
Shunter, if you do CPL only, and then IR seperately later, you will still have to do the full ATPL theory (14 exams) if you want to upgrade to ATPL later on.
This way we are trapped into doing the 14 exams for the CPL, and later in the future redo all of them if we want to add IR to then upgrade to ATPL.
Does anyone have a smarter solution?
Eikido