No Ryanair has an excellent safety record. Incredibly modern fleet, albeit with high utilisation, they shift some serious numbers here in Europe. And like your good selves they are subject to incredibly tight scrutiny safety wise. I suspect that some countries would actually enjoy highlighting any issues Ryanair have as well. They have made a few enemies along the way!
I would say they are Marmite, but that would probably be lost in translation - you love them or hate them. They are cheap, normally. They are rude, normally. They have spawned an industry in trying to avoid their supplementary charges, whilst the unwary can get absolute stung rotten (nickel and diming, but many times multiplied). Surprisingly good timekeepers.
I fly them if needbe, but would not fly my family with them - not because of safety issues, as I have none, but just because I do not want to put them through the Ryanair ordeal. Fundamentally 1 incident could destroy Ryanair as people are waiting to say that their low fares reflected poor safety /maintainence. But it wouldn't surprise me if in terms of numbers carried vs incidents, they are the safest airline out there... possibly in the world.
But they are incredible self-publicists, and bullies. They make accusations left right and centre, but obviously happy to throw their lawyers to tear apart a great aviation site.
If you havn't seen this, this is Ryanair encapsulated (infact Ryanair linked to this video!!):
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct...7pE7AOc--EB6Dg