Delays arr at Immigration at Dublin

[Flame]

Has anyone any idea as to why the lines at Immigration at Dublin are taking so long to clear. This seems to have only started about 4/5 weeks ago.

The arae at Pier B where all the Transatlantic flights arr is a building site with no room whatsover for passengers to que. Immigration Officers seem to be at their wits ends trying to cope with passengers complaining

[Tom the Tenor]

I sympathise with the Dublin pax but have you tried Cork of an evening around 8.30 pm/9 pm when it is wet!

At least the pax are indoors at Dublin.

[Irish Steve]

I suspect it's sheer volume, especially when the transatlantics are around. EI have several flights all arriving together, and it seems that AA, CO US & DL are some days pretty close to each other, and the summer schedule has kicked in, so CO are now a 767-400 instead of a 757 that's also going to SNN, so that makes a difference too. The EI & AA Chicago arrive within 5 minutes of each other, and some days, there's the MCO as well. We all know how good DAA are at planning, so what's the betting that the work is making it hard, and there's probably not enough gates and personnel as well, though DAA won't be directly able to control immigration numbers. Not a lot different to most American airports now then :E :E

[840]

TTT

Totally agreed. I had the pleasure of arriving into Cork on the Amsterdam flight on a Friday evening a few weeks ago. Fortunately, it wasn't raining, which was a good thing because there seemed to be several hundred people between me and the entrance doors.

Ahead of us were flights from Budapest, Belfast, Stansted, East Midlands, Birmingham and a delayed flight from Gatwick. Passengers on the Prague flight ended up behind us. Aside from immigration problems all these flights were trying to use 2 baggage belts. Chaos.

One thing that slightly bugged me at immigration was that there was an Australian guy who stayed in the EU passengers queue and the security guard spent a couple of minutes dealing with him holding up a queue full of people who could have been waved through. He should have been sent to the back of the non-EU queue.

The other question I would have is why landing cards were not given out on the plane. I've frequently flown with Aer Lingus into Dublin and they always give out Irish landing cards on the Amsterdam flights. I've never seen this happen on a flight into Cork. Is there a reason for the different procedure?

[Flame]

I am told there were serious delays at Immigration at Dublin this morning, nearly all passengers delayed by up to an hour and many missing connecting flights..anyone know what happening

[MarkD]

If a separate entrance was provided for flights ex UK/Ireland (for whom immigration should NOT apply, since they are within the CTA) perhaps the queues would be less lengthy!

[WHBM]

I've never had a satisfactory answer to why immigration controls were started at the Irish end on UK to Ireland flights a couple of years ago. There is a longstanding agreement (the "Common Travel Area") that says this should not be done. It was the reason why Ireland had to stay out of the Schengen Agreement when the UK chose not to do so.

At land borders (from Northern Ireland) there are no controls at all, not even any indication that you have crossed.

On the return flights from Ireland to the UK there are no immigration controls.

[bear11]

I'd suspect this is because we've had quite a few people claiming asylum via the UK in the last few years, including heavily pregnant mothers arriving here at the last minute to give birth so their child could claim citizenship under our (recently amended) constitution. Asylum laws say that you must request such at your point of entry into the EU, rather than where suits you, so if their papers are not in order, they're turned around. Large numbers claiming asylum here come from Africa, yet we have no direct flight or boat connections from there. Apart from that, the DAA couldn't find its arse with both hands, so expecting them to segregate people coming from different flights is well into the realm of the improbable.

You're correct about the border, although there have been occasions when buses or trains were boarded by immigration people checking papers. And there may be no formal immigration controls when entering the UK, but immigration/police are there, and keep an eye on who's coming in from Ireland.

[Firestorm]

Come to England where everyone's welcome: Tony said so!

[Flame]

WHBM;

The current situation re the Common Travel Area (CTA), is as follows...

the CTA between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, applies to citizens of both countries only. So any person holding a Republic of Ireland passport or a passport of the United Kingdom has right of travel between both countries without the need to carry such passports

Citizens from all other countries, including other EU countries must have passports and visas if required

EG.. a Chinese national, who is a visa category person, requires a passport and a visa when arriving in Ireland, it makes no difference whether that person arrives from the US, Europe or indeed the UK

There is an obligation on persons arriving at ports within the CTA to prove their nationality, and best practice shows that a passport can be used, but other forms of identity are also accepted by immigration officials

Having said all of the above, I am aware that her majestys Immigration service do no regular checks on passengers arriving from Ireland, and I do not know why. The police do carry out checks on an irregular basis for obvious reasons

as a last few words, do not know the difference between a UK citizen and a UK subject...can anyone tell me