I guess I spoke too soon.... I am once again baffled and confused by the myriad of responses. Some say yes some day no, some say there is a paper difference and some don't... So again I have no idea what to think.
I would love to call the CAA to "enlighten" perhaps us all, about this but unfortunately i work very long hours every week day which leaves little time to talk to them, although besides the fact that ideally we'd have this in writing!
So should the CAA issue CB-IR - the question that would need to be answered would be: what do they consider the difference to be? As they clearly view the skill level (although identical if taken the ATPL exams & IR skills test) to be different?
This is interesting to still be confusing!
Thanks
Alex