The Commissioner for Aviation Regulation has said that Ryanair wants his office closed down because it has been effective in enforcing passenger rights.
Speaking before the launch of passenger complaint statistics for the first eight months of this year, Cathal Guiomard said that his office was not in the least intimidated by Ryanair.
Mr Guiomard insisted the regulations would be enforced and that his office would not be dictated to.
The Commissioner and Ryanair had clashed over passenger compensation for cancellations, passengers denied boarding and passenger entitlements to refreshments for delays of two hours or more.
The Commissioner confirmed that customer service staff at Ryanair had been banned from meeting with the Commissioners' customer service manager.
Statistics released this morning show that 239 complaints had been received relating to 21 airlines.
77 of the valid complaints dealt with by the Commissioner related to flights from Dublin, Cork and Shannon.
Over 80% of the complaints related to denied boarding or long delays.
32 complaints were made against Ryanair, and 17 against Aer Lingus.
However, according to the Commissioner these complaint rates were low when compared with the number of passengers carried by the airlines.
Top of the complaints table was Scottish based airline Flyglobespan, with two complaints and a passenger volume of 10,324.
