O'Leary rubbished the claims.

He accused the representative of the Irish Airline Pilots Association, Evan Cullen, of being a "failed Aer Lingus pilot". The matter, he contended, was one of industrial relations, not safety.

He accused RTE of a wholly unbalanced report. Miriam O'Callaghan rejected his claim and pointed out the efforts RTE had undertaken to ensure balance. The viewer was left wondering who to believe. O'Leary himself wasn't convincing. He said he had no worries about pilot fatigue, which, in light of what was reported, was an extraordinary statement. If he was to be believed, the implication would be that the pilots were faking the whole thing.

There has long been a problem between O'Leary and a number of pilots. The latter want to be represented by a trade union, but O'Leary, in common with many of his ilk, won't have anything to do with unions. From his point of view, unions interfere with running his business. The pilots feel that, without union representation, they are exposed to bullying and intimidation through Ryanair's culture.

All of which is mildly interesting to the travelling public.

But now the matter of safety has been thrown into the mix, and we don't know who to believe. What we do know, based on form, is that O'Leary appears determined to gain the upper hand with his pilots.

For two weeks last year, the threat of jail hung over the Ryanair chief executive. He was accused of being in contempt of a High Court injunction preventing him from removing pilot John Goss from the flying roster. The airline had accused Goss of intimidating another pilot who was reputedly antiunion, a charge that earlier this year was exposed as trumped-up.

Justice Barry White made it plain that he regarded O'Leary and Ryanair's behaviour as unacceptable, and he was deliberating whether to jail O'Leary when a solution was reached which secured Goss's future.

Until then, O'Leary appeared to be embracing the risk of ending up in prison in order to posit his tough-guy credentials in battling the pilots.

Far more serious was the result of a related case last July. Justice Thomas Smyth found that two members of Ryanair's management had given "false evidence" in a case the company brought against pro-union pilots, accusing them of intimidating other Ryanair pilots.

The judge found that Ryanair management, not the pilots, had done the intimidating. The false evidence ruling was highly unusual.

Judges hear lies every day in court, but only when they are sure that untruths were deliberately told to mislead the court do they comment.

Smyth said it was only the second time in his career on the bench he felt compelled to make such a ruling. Presumably, the DPP took note and will investigate as rigorously as he would if the offenders wore shell suits rather than bespoke ones.

If some gouger was accused in court of giving false evidence, he would be congratulated by his fellow gang members. It is reasonable to expect that higher standards apply in a publicly quoted company. Yet Ryanair has made no comment about this moral failure. Its silence on this issue speaks volumes.

Has profit and tough-guy posturing washed over all standards in society?

Is it now acceptable for a publicly quoted company to disregard the law?

Does Ryanair regard anything, legal or otherwise, justifiable in pursuit of slapping down these turbulent pilots?

Against this backdrop, O'Leary wants us to believe that he is telling the truth and that claims of pilot fatigue, a matter crucial to passenger safety, is not a concern.

How can we, when Ryanair's record in relation to uppity pilots speaks for itself?

mclifford@tribune. ie