Aer Arann are an approved ATR TRTO and until recently they were charging self sponsored students 19,000 euros to get rated on the ATR 42/ 72 which must have been a reasonably lucrative income strand for them.
I have heard that the type rating courses have been suspended because the TREs and TRIs are so busy flying passenger routes and in house routine LPC and OPC work they cannot dedicate the required time and effort to teaching type rating courses.
This would explain why they have recently been looking for Captains, maybe the F/O recruitment is to allow existing senior F/Os to move across to the LHS and free up the pressure on the existing Captains, TREs and TRIs and maybe get the type rating money rolling in again.
That’s all pure speculation though.