As an FI it doesn't matter much when you do the IRI tick except that if you currently have a UK national licence with in built IMC privileges or an IMC rating then you can avoid the expense of revalidating your SPA IR.
Actually I thought the restriction removal gave you the equiv of an IRI but would it be issued as such under the new rules?
The restriction removal is a hangover from the UK National FI rating and has nothing to do with JAR or EASA. If you have completed the IRI course you will have qualified either as an IRI which is really a stand alone qualification or as an FI with IRI privileges. It is a JAA qualification and will be recognised by EASA. The real question is when are the CAA going to pull their finger out and stop issuing ratings with limitations that have not existed for the last 11 years. The only reason they didn't do it in 1999 was because nobody had amended the licence issue software. Once they stop applying the limitation, the question then will be how do you know who has IRI privileges other than by adding the IRI rating. Either way Gatwick will have to come up with a way of doing this by April 2012. Maybe another free licence re-issue; they will have to do one for ICAO English as EASA require the validity date to be apended.
I would need to do 130 odd hours before I was making any money teaching it.
Which I think illustrates my point quite nicely.