I believe there was a few former AFTA students from Cork taken on by Ryanair in the last few months.
They were UK nationals
AFAIK. I asked an AFTA guy about it and he said that none of their Irish graduates that he knew of in the last 2 years or so have been called.
I don't think it's fair to say RYR aren't hiring people based on being Irish. First of all we haven't seen every cadet to get selected over the last few months and second of all we haven't got the numbers of those Irish who did apply. For example if the vast majority of applicants are British and very few Irish applicants, then statistically you would expect the vast majority of successful people to be British. Maybe it just so happened that very few Irish applied and those that did ended up failing the sim ? There are many irish pilots in RYR, I would be surprised if not shocked that RYR were discriminating against their own for whatever reason.
The evidence is pretty clear and paints a fairly sad picture now after a time. When you apply to RYR you apply through CAE. CAE get back and ask for your CV if you meet the minimum requirements etc and they send that off to RYR. RYR then decide who they call for assessment.
Of all the Irish I know who have applied none have heard anything after the initial CAE application. Of all the UK/other nationals I know most if not all have heard back within a week for 2 asking for their CV. Looking at it from my own experience and the people I know, plus the people those people know Irish people are not even being called for interview.
Like I said as TRI has told me there have been no Irish cadets through the type rating in almost 2 years.
Like you said statistics wise the network of people I know includes far more Irish than UK or other(somewhere in the 5:1 ratio) yet all the UK/other are contacted for at least a CV and some called for assessment while none of the Irish hear anything after initial application....tells a story if you ask me.