Travel between Ireland and UK to require passport

Plans are in place to end the Common Travel Area between Ireland and Britain, which has existed since the foundation of the State, and they hope to have it in place in 2009


Ireland-Britain travel will require passport

I wonder does that mean now that Ireland will join the Schengen Agreement?

From Wiki:

VERY interesting!

If you fly between the Republic and the UK, you have to have ID anyway.
On the ferries maybe not but the British state was probably well aware of the identities of many who were travelling.

As the UK is seemingly not going to introduce this on the inner Irish border it would mean in practive little change.

But I DON'T think the Republic will join Schengen. That would mean the Republic would have to seal the Irish Border unless the UK also joined which I think is politically unlikely.

It would mean that border controls would have to be set up between Rep of Ireland and Northern Ireland though...

Nah Hazza, the RTE article says the UK would not set up border controls on the land border.
They have a wee bit of experience of trying to control movement across that border and the problems in doing so.

Yes, that's what I thought - it would be quite a provocative move to set up a border in Ireland.

But then it makes the whole thing pretty redundant, because if you really wanted to slip in or out of the UK undetected, you'd do it through Nth Ireland...

Unless they intrduce checks between Northern Ireland and Mainland Britain I cannot see how it will work.

Perhaps the British government is going to give Northern Ireland back to Southern Ireland.

The ruling class of the British state would love to get shot (sic) of Northern Ireland, remember when John Major as much as said so?
They only kept the Six Counties as back then the textile and shipbuilding industries on the western seaboard were important. Now they are not.

Fact of the matter is of course, having changed / dumped Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution, the ruling class of the Irish State don't really want the Six Counties either.
Take on a basket case economy that the UK would no longer be subsidising? Would mean few less readies in Bertie Ahern's back pocket.

Interesting stuff, but the reality is that travelling by plane between the North and the UK mainland (I once made the mistake of using the term "mainland" in a meeting in Dublin, and it did not go down too well) has always required a passport anyway. I remember spending several hours with Special Branch in Manchester because I only had a driving license as ID; you might well have enjoyed it Monkstown .

You have to remember that prior to the Celtic Tiger and a 10% Corporation Tax our Southern neighbours had a basket case economy as well but I think the point that no one really wants NI is a given but you never know how things will turn out now that Big Ian and Martin actually run the place.

There's also a huge amount of people in the border counties who live in one country and work in the other. I know people who do the commute from Sligo to Derry every day, others who lived in Belfast and Derry and worked in Letterkenny. Still more who lived in Dundalk and worked in Belfast.

According to the Irish Independent:


Further reading.