So the only way to prove nationality is a passport! So Ireland have effectively ended the Common Travel Area for air travel from the UK mainland. You certainly have to queue along with the EEA citizens so the main advantage of the CTA (no immigration queues) is gone even if a driving licence is allowed.
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New border controls at St Pancras
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So the only way to prove nationality is a passport! So Ireland have effectively ended the Common Travel Area for air travel from the UK mainland. You certainly have to queue along with the EEA citizens so the main advantage of the CTA (no immigration queues) is gone even if a driving licence is allowed.
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WestCoast
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Many EEA citizens also have an EU/EEA approved ID Card which fulfills that function, although British and Irish citizens only have passports to prove their nationality.
Precisely, so the only way a British person can satisfy that they are entitled to enter Ireland at an airport without a passport is by, ... err ..., presenting a passport!
transmanche
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I lived in Dublin for two years and have visited Ireland subsequently on many occasions. I have never taken my passport with me.
On arriving at Dublin Ferryport or Dun Laoghaire, merely answering the question "What nationality are you?" in a vaguely British accent will gain you entry.
At Dublin Airport (since the new border posts were installed) I've found that simply handing over my driving licence will gain entry. Before that, you could just walk on by.
The FCO website says:
"Ireland, along with the UK, is a member of the Common Travel Area. This means that British Citizens do not require a passport to visit Ireland. However, Irish immigration officers will check the IDs of all passengers arriving by air from the UK and most airlines will not carry passengers to and from Ireland unless they have seen satisfactory photographic ID before boarding"
Yes, but it's merely checked as an ID. In theory it wouldn't matter if it was expired.
That's at least partly because Irish airports are too small for the relevant segregation. Even domestic flights within Ireland often end up getting put through passport control! You can get through the Irish immigration by showing photo ID plus a boarding pass showing you started in the UK.
In several UK airports passengers mix on arrival and anyone presenting a boarding pass from Ireland (with no ID) is left through. In a world of online check-ins, it leaves a hole in the border big enough for the proverbial coach and four.
WestCoast
Established Member
I am not sure about Dublin Airport being too small - it's pretty big now with two terminals, certainly quite a bit larger than a number of UK airports! If they really wanted to segregate, they could do it.
I've arrived from the ROI at Manchester, Liverpool and Blackpool Airports, at Manchester they bus you from the aircraft to an "Ireland Arrivals Door". At Liverpool and Blackpool (which is tiny), they simply direct you (on foot) to an "ROI Arrivals Channel". No passport control or boarding pass inspection at these airports.
Trust me, if Blackpool Airport can segregate arriving passengers, than any airport in the Republic of Ireland can!
Anon Mouse
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I wish we would, then if my Wife wanted to go to another Schengen Country she would not need to apply for a visa. That is dispite being married to a British National
WestCoast
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I wish we would, then if my Wife wanted to go to another Schengen Country she would not need to apply for a visa. That is dispite being married to a British National
I agree, but I just think that there's too much anti-EU sentiment in this country for Schengen (even though it's not the same thing!), propelled by Daily Mail fuelled panic about asylum seekers 'flooding' the country from Calais....
There are advantages and disadvantages to joining Schengen, but it's hard to have a sensible debate when the "terrorists and asylum seekers bandwagon" won't listen to anything anyone else has to say!
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Certainly Dublin Airport used to have segregated entry for flights from the UK.
This thread from 2009
http://www.pprune.org/passengers-sl...0-republic-ireland-uk-common-travel-area.html
suggests that Dublin airport simply started putting all arrivals in the same place out of their own convenience and it ballooned from there.
This thread from 2009
http://www.pprune.org/passengers-sl...0-republic-ireland-uk-common-travel-area.html
suggests that Dublin airport simply started putting all arrivals in the same place out of their own convenience and it ballooned from there.
Why doesn't that surprise me, just as hearing that at St Pancras they had people arriving from Paris and Brussels and supposedly just had an easy to cross barrier. I don't know if that really was, or is, the case but it would not surprise me one bit.
Gatwick South Terminal has flights from the ROI arriving in the international section but with a side gate where you present your boarding card. So there is potential for some to arrive from somewhere else arriving at the same time as a Ryanair flight from the ROI, buy a ticket for that Ryanair flight, print out the Ryanair boarding pass and present that at the side gate, avoiding passport control.
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