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Are they nuts? Ireland is not as high up as Finland (I don't think, anyway) and when it gets dark in winter, it's difficult to understand that while you out walking on the road may be able to see, the person coming against you in a car can't make out shapes in the dark. And when it gets sufficiently dark, even someone walking on the road can't distinguish shapes.
Even here, in twilight (dawn or dusk) conditions, you get people wearing all-dark clothing and you don't see them until you're right up on top of them. Wearing something light-coloured, even without a reflective armband or jacket, is just plain common sense. It would be entirely possible for a cyclist to hit a pedestrian, especially as having lights on bikes seems to be a lost art these days, not alone cars to do so.
As said, this is the most fanatical cyclist section, the folks that normie cyclists like me would tend to think are ruining the reputation for the rest of them. And yes, their argument is that the drivers should just drive slow enough to be able to react to even formless shapes.
Incidentally, it's entirely possible that on the whole, even though it's more to the south than Finland, Ireland may actually be darker during the late autumn-winter-early spring period than Finland on the whole, since there's less snow to provide a natural light-amplifying milieu.
Its worth noticing that the UK highway code says "drive slowly enough that you can stop in the distance you can see to be clear" (and most other jurisdictions have a similar requirement) and explicitly points out that this is likely to be limited by the quality of your headlights at night. A cyclist not wearing hi-vis clothes is easier to see from a distance than many other things you would want to avoid hitting.
If you can't stop in time to spot and avoid a cyclist unless they are wearing hi-vis, you wouldn't have been able to avoid a tree either.
Trees don't usually travel on the road, you'd feel and hear a change in terrain before hitting a tree, unlike for a cyclist suddenly crossing your path, or appearing in your headlights after a turn on the road.
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