Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the face of it, this Bill makes sense. The requirement to present a passport for valid travel is one that has private origins within Ryanair.

If the Irish and British Governments have negotiated and agreed a common travel area for British and Irish citizens, Ryanair, or any other group, should not have the right to ignore that. Irish citizens benefit when there is no requirement to use a passport when travelling to Britain. Quite often, this is due to unfortunate circumstances within the State. Historically, people in Ireland relied on the common travel area when taking the boat for both economic and social reasons. The current cost of a standard ten-year passport is €80. This is more than the cost of some return flights to Britain and is a significant sum of money for many of those compelled to travel to Britain for pressing economic and social reasons.

Ryanair's requirement for passengers to present a passport makes sense from an internal efficiency viewpoint because its staff will have a limited number of ideas to be familiar with, to recognise and process. From its point of view it is efficient to do so. I assume it also reduces the number of scarce IT resources needed to record and process different types of identification and so reduces internal transaction costs. This decision has the effect of displacing transaction costs to the external travelling populace. Despite the special agreement between the Irish and British Governments, a private company is permitted to impose its own obligations on citizens who would otherwise be free to avail of the benefits of the common travel area. At present, the travelling populace is compelled to produce a passport which obviates the possibility of using some other form of photographic ID such as driving licence, student ID, Garda vetting ID or social welfare ID. The current position is detrimental to overall public welfare.

Our European partners may have valid grounds for complaint if Ireland and Britain give each other advantages which they do not give to other EU countries and citizens. I recall a colleague travelling with a European Parliament delegation to County Meath. When they arrived in Dublin airport there was one channel at passport control from Ireland and Great Britain, one for the EU and a third for other countries. A member of the delegation complained and the Ireland and Great Britain channel was subsequently removed. Sinn Féin currently has no objection to this Bill because it clarifies in law that private companies must not compel travellers who are otherwise entitled to travel passport-free within the common travel area to carry a passport.

We should not, as a matter of course, confer benefits on British citizens above and beyond those provided to other citizens within the EU. Everyone accepts that some verifiable ID is essential but a passport should not be the only ID accepted by any aviation company or agency travelling between Britain and Ireland. This contravenes the spirit of the common travel area agreement between our countries.

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