From Irish Ferries via Facebook


I have travelled many time to Ireland with Irish Ferries, Stena, and occasionally Air Flingus and Ryanair.  Passport has never been required on the ferry before and I thought we had a free travel zone? This reads as if it's a UK Government change? what about the Stranraer to Larne and other ferries to Northern Ireland, and indeed the Enterprise international train from Belfast to Dublin?

 
This change strikes me as contradicting the original legislation. Need a serious lawyer involved. In an article today there is no change to using ferries to Northern Ireland or to crossing the border. Apparently not all airlines require a passport for journeys to the Republic although the Irish immigration do seem to like one.

I have not used an Irish Ferry for perhaps 10 years and then no id of any sort was required. I just had to give (any) name! 

 

Northern Ireland is part of the UK, so no reason to require a Passport.

 
Indeed, you can walk across the land border between N.Ireland & Eire. Still.

 

Thank you for confirming that. 

The original post says "this is to ensure compliance".  Reading that carefully, I found myself wondering if it's easier for Irish Ferries simply to have a standard check (passport) for everyone that meets and indeed surpasses what the Border Force want - and that the Border Force would be happy with other IDs such as a driving license, bus pass, ...

Edit to add ....


As a private company, they can choose what ID they require of travellers and it's probably better business to look after the 95% who have passports and are so easy and uniform to process that spend time and money and employ more people to process the 5% "awkward squad'.  There is no requirement that I know on them to act as a common carrier.

 
Indeed. 

In my wallet, I carry my squeaky clean driving licence (which incorporates a really scary historic image of me), together with my North Somerset concessionary bus pass (which contains a slightly less scary historic image of me) and my Old Gits Senior Railcard, which actually has no means of personal identification whatever.

That's why I choose to keep all of those cards together in my wallet. If anything untoward were to happen, someone would hopefully be able to identify me, sooner rather than later.

I have no current intention of travelling to Ireland, by the way, after they trounced us at Twickenham. 

CfN. 

 
I'm reading this as a bit of a grey area where technically you still won't need a passport to cross the border but you will need one to travel on a boat or plane to make that crossing; walking across the land border won’t need one, but indeed, what about a rail journey?

My only experience was back in the 1980s, returning from a few days in Ireland via Fishguard. We were two youngish men travelling with not much luggage and probably fitted some form of profile arousing suspicion given all the terrorist activity at the time. While heading for the train we were accosted by someone in plain clothes demanding ID, of which I had none and had checked beforehand that I didn't need any. It being some unearthly hour of the morning what particularly bugged me was that she had produced no ID herself and wasn't at any form of checkpoint or barrier so could be literally anyone, which I pointed out.  Uniformed port staff did eventually reassure me that she was legitimate and after answering a couple of questions and perusing my friend’s driving licence we were on our way.  I suppose it could have led to us being delayed but as I was only heading on to work as soon as the train arrived at Paddington I wasn't too worried as it would have made an interesting excuse!

 

Calder says not if travelling from/to the North of the island

 

Is it being "awkward" to not have need for a passport's primary purpose and also not want the cost of acquiring one?

The only reason I recently acquired one again (foreign born - full cost and process) was because it was needed by another government department, unrelated to foreign travel.

 

I was writing tongue in cheek. Suggesting that Irish Ferries might be doing it because those without passports are more complex and admin-costly for them to handle rather than being awkward.  To give a hint at that, I put the words "awkward squad" in quotes.

The passport within the UK / Ireland "open" (quotes again) travel zone is in effect an ID document, and there's a discussion there that carries a who can of worms with it.  Some European countries - it might even be most - require you to carry ID with you at all times and if not a national of that country, that probably means a passport. There are reports on various groups I'm on of police and other officials getting pretty shirty with people not carrying passports but rather leaving them safe in their hotels.

The UK -> Ireland border is an interesting case in being open transit / ID but not passport necessarily may be required as I understand it.  Between Schengen countries as a none-schengen national, there are still occasional border checks and for me that needs a passport.

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Corollary.  Yesterday I spent over an hour that I won't get back on the phone to OVO Energy who had just sent me an email, seemingly  chasing up payment of an electric and gas bill that had been sent less than a week previous, "You haven’t paid your energy bill in full this month, so we wanted to check in and see if we can help." they wrote.   The whole process from my end was time wasting and irritating, with automated systems pushing, pushing, pushing me to use their website help, my online account, web chat rather than actually speaking with an agent.   And I was - I suspect - in the minority who are difficult to handle because I was NOT interacting online - i.e. one of the "awkward squad". 

Systems ARE needed to be able to handle the perfectly legal but minority cases and not to sweep in those who choose or cannot do things the way 95% of the people can.  On "common carrier" we come back to a need to be able to accept cash for payment for a UK main network travel ticket.

P.S. - My energy bill issue resolved.  My bill WAS paid up to date; just that I was a few days late the previous month, 14 days allowed and I paid after we got back from 17 days away.  Significant lag in their system - the letter suggesting I had underpaid was out of date when emailed to me, so checking the online account told me it that the account had nothing overdue, even though the letter 5 minutes earlier said otherwise.

 
By coincidence, I was in Pembroke Dock at the start of the month and happened to see the ferry leave for Rosslare.   On researching it further I discovered I could travel with only photo ID and it put me in mind to perhaps make a trip next summer.

If a passport is now required that might need a rethink.   I am not sure I can justify the expense for what will probably be its only use.

 
Further information - Stena also applying the new "rule" too.

From TimeOut


Yet from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/common-travel-area/common-travel-area-accessible?

 
That latter paragraph is a currently, now option without referring to end September. It will surely be updated nearer the time.

 
Just a short note .please check your drivers license,whilst you may be entitled to drive until well into the future,the photo card does need to be renewed and the picture updated every so often 10 years at this time.

 

"The lesson? It’s just best to pack your passport for any journey over to the Emerald Isle"

Amen.