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The DUB Passport/Immigration Queue Thread

180567

Would anyone know if anything is being done to solve the issues at Terminal one passport control ? Extremely long queues for passengers arriving in the evenings. An hour or more seems to be the new normal now.

There seems to be a real problem with the number of inbound flights after 10 and not having enough passport control staff to cope with the numbers. For some reason Terminal two is not affected and it never takes more than five minutes to get through there. I see in T1 they are scanning the passport through a scanner machine now so I think that is what is also slowing it all down.

I'm kind of surprised Ryanair haven't been on going bonkers about this as it's really affecting their passengers rather than anyone elses. Any of their evening flights arriving later than 10 are going to be caught up in these massive queues. After being caught up in the long queues a couple of times I'd really think twice before I'd book a T1 evening arriving flight again. Regardless of the price I'd now pay the extra to go Aer Lingus through T2 just to avoid that.

We're not even into the peak summer holiday season so I don't know what it is going to be like come July or august.

I can think of a few ways to improve the system myself - separate the UK \ common travel area arriving passengers like they do at Gatwick where people show their boarding card to confirm they are traveling from the UK. Or loads more of the automatic scanner gates.

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The Bishop Basher

lxflyer wrote: »

Just to correct you - I said already there are checks - UK Border Force do random spot checks on Irish arrivals. I have been on several flights from Dublin into UK airports where there has been a full check of everyone's passport or ID upon disembarkation by UK Border Force officials.

Not saying it doesn't happen but you've clearly been unlucky. I've been flying to the UK regularly for many years and never experienced this at any airport. Not even once.

I have however wasted many many hours standing in the queue to get through passport control in Dublin. I've also had to endure the extra long wait for baggage on the rare occasions i've been forced to check a bag..

This being Ireland, I don't expect anything better to be honest. I always just assumed it was a result of poor and inefficient work practices mandated by the unions. Either way it's embarrassing to watch visitors to our country treated this way.

plodder

The Veteran wrote: »

It's as a result of two separate countries having their own laws. Entry to U.K. from Ireland is governed by the Entry from Ireland Regulations 1972 which explicitly prohibits full controls. The increasing number of "ad hoc" checks conducted by the U.K. on Irish arrivals uses security legislation to justify their imposition. Also Border Force don't have the manpower to control all Irish arrivals.

Sure, I understand that there are different regulations in the two jurisdictions, and it's all legal, but the question is why do the two countries have different regulations?

Am I naive in thinking that a common travel area should mean free movement between the two countries, as it does at the NI border?

I think the fact there are spot checks on the UK side is a red herring, because you can be stopped anywhere in this country by a garda and asked to identify yourself if the garda suspects you are a foreign national. I don't think anyone would object to occasional spot checks at airport arrivals either.

Why do we put people to this level of inconvenience at the airports, when you could cross the NI border with no checks?

BlinkingLights

Legally speaking, why does customs and immigration even have any rights to ask for ID from domestic passengers ?!

Considering the Gardai can't just go around randomly demanding ID from say bus passengers or people walk down the street without but good reason to do so.
We are also not obliged to have ID.

I know I flew Cork Dublin several years ago when Ryainair were still doing that route and one woman on the flight got to passport control and said "So you've FINALLY recognised the people's republic of Cork have ye?!"

Given the sheer volume of passengers on UK-Irish routes, it seems lidirocis that Dublin as well as Cork and Shannon don't have CTA gates.

I mean actually as someome who spent time in the UK Ireland adopts a far worse attitude to this than the UK does. Despite all the rhetoric from irish people, the major London airports all facilitate irish passengers extremely well and have dedicated, rapid entry routes giving us special status.

It's very unfair that we don't bother extending British passengers the same privilege.

Seems like it's perhaps an unofficial harsher immigration policy at work here.

Also by not having CTA, EU and non-EU channels for in bound flights we are making customs and immigration security worse by increasing load on staff and screeners. It's just adding "noise".

It's at best lazy design of facilities and at worst a deliberate attempt to be nasty to CTA passengers to exert some kind of strange nationalism. That's how it comes across to an English friend of mine. He thinks he's just nationalistic showboating.

What I found hilarious was when I did take Irish domestic flights Dublin airport treated me like a foreign national. When I flew Ireland to London Heathrow I just breezed through as a domestic passengers and was on the tube 10 mins later.

So weirdly the UK is actually treating irish air passengers better than Irish airports!?

grogi

Deleted User wrote: »

Let's put some perspective on this, it's NOT just a Dublin problem I have arrived into Heathrow, JFK, Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Orlando among many and had at least an Hour wait to be processed. I don't disagree that queues are long but you have to remember that the people processing the passengers are doing their job, it will always slow up if one or two have issues with people or their IDs.

And if there is an issue, they should be taken out of the queue to be handled without blocking the gate for everyone else.

[Deleted User]

grogi wrote: »

And if there is an issue, they should be taken out of the queue to be handled without blocking the gate for everyone else.

Certain aspects can be dealt with at the gate relatively quickly and yes others can't be and are taken away but resources aren't limitless either. The missus has recently been watching "border patrol" or similar and recent episodes from Canada, Australia and New Zealand show them trying to deal with issues at the gate before more serious ones are dealt with away from the area.

Considering we are dealing talking about international travel you would think many people would be able to recognise it is not just a Dublin issue but a general issue. I have listed several international airports where queues are similar or longer to Dublins. Indeed I remember many trips through DeGualle with 30min waits to process an Irish plane load of passengers.

I recently arrived into a Canadian immigration haul at a time two other widebody international flights were arriving from Amsterdam and Frankfurt I think, less than half the gates were open and took over 30 mins for them to open more. It took 75 mins to get through here before we had to queue for another 20 to hand over our customs forms before exiting.

edo2010

Its a pretty pathetic situation for such a small airport to have such long queues. Came in myself yesterday from Zurich and spent 50 minutes clearing immigration. They had just 2 desks open for non-EU. The schedules of these planes coming in is not a secret... but I suppose its the typical "sure what harm!" attitude...

BlinkingLights

Dublin Airport basically needs 1. more staff on the immigration desks and 2. far better organisation of how they're dealing with inbound passengers.

There's absolutely no logic to just dumping everyone into the same screening system as they're coming from totally different areas in terms of how their immigration status is likely to work in Ireland.

Flights from the Common Travel Area and the EU should really be handled in an EU/CTA terminal (or most of a terminal) with fully international fights going to a dedicated area for that purpose.

You'll always get transit passengers and people arriving on non-EU passports via EU flights, but that's relatively easy to deal with if you just have a proper diversion system on the way to passport control. You just need airport staff present in the corridors / on the way to queues and much better signage.

Getting the electronic control gates working well would also help and they should probably be introduced at Cork and possibly Shannon too on a smaller scale. I've had a few delays at Cork in recent times when multiple flights land close together. Last time it was because of a charter arriving in the middle of the usual schedule.

Also if the UK is definitely leaving the EU, we should be working on a CTA function for those passport cards and an extension of the system to the UK for people who frequently travel between the UK and Ireland and some kind of automated system. It would save us all a lot of grief!

Mebuntu

lxflyer wrote: »

Just to correct you - I said already there are checks - UK Border Force do random spot checks on Irish arrivals. I have been on several flights from Dublin into UK airports where there has been a full check of everyone's passport or ID upon disembarkation by UK Border Force officials.

I've gone through UK airports (mainly all the London ones but also the various regionals from time to time) almost every week for at least the last 10 years and can count the number of times passport checks were done on the fingers of one hand. On those occasions the delay was about 5 seconds. At Gatwick there was a separate channel where you just had to hand over your Boarding Pass but even that is long gone. The last time I had a check was at Liverpool where two almost apologetic young ladies waved most people through with just a cursory glance. The situation at Dublin is outrageous and inexcusable, whoever is responsible.

The waste of space that is the old Terminal and the large area around it could easily have been transformed into another Immigration Control Area for the thousands of passengers arriving at the 1xx stands with a facility for CTA pax. It's just the will is not there.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

trellheim

I have refrained from posting so far to see how this would develop.

The usual wagon-circling is going on I see -> DAA ->finger point at Inis-> point at GNIB plus some dimly defined "not my problem guv" see above etc

1) There is no requirement to stop CTA travellers; yes you can be compelled to show ID - but there is no requirement in law that they must be inspected, only that they *MAY* be inspected .

The agencies above are happy to talk out the side of their mouth rather than adopt the much more sensible UK Model ( which, in fairness, we had and suited everyone )

UK Border Force happily do random checks on their segregated CTA inbounds - the nation with some of the strictest airport and immigration controls I have ever seen .

Is it consistent ? Do we even have that, or is it just airport little empires ?

No. Drive up the M1 to Newry - you won't be stopped. Get the train from Dublin to Belfast - you will be very unlikely to get stopped

If there is a hard border imposed by the UK due to BrExit , the agencies above prime example will be a very good reference point for Border Force ( has no-one heard of reciprocity ) and we will only have ourselves to blame. The difference between here and the UK is consistency so I would be unsurprised if all those border points I mention above are checked.

I've asked before here for policy guidance from DFA or DOJ on this matter and strangely none has been forthcoming. A poster above mentions that each nation is free to impose their own rules. Fine - lets see what they are so.

LXFlyer

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I suspect that was back in the day when all flights used pier B and we had pretty much zero immigration.

LXFlyer

trellheim wrote: »

I have refrained from posting so far to see how this would develop.

The usual wagon-circling is going on I see -> DAA ->finger point at Inis-> point at GNIB plus some dimly defined "not my problem guv" see above etc

1) There is no requirement to stop CTA travellers; yes you can be compelled to show ID - but there is no requirement in law that they must be inspected, only that they *MAY* be inspected .

The agencies above are happy to talk out the side of their mouth rather than adopt the much more sensible UK Model ( which, in fairness, we had and suited everyone )

UK Border Force happily do random checks on their segregated CTA inbounds - the nation with some of the strictest airport and immigration controls I have ever seen .

Is it consistent ? Do we even have that, or is it just airport little empires ?

No. Drive up the M1 to Newry - you won't be stopped. Get the train from Dublin to Belfast - you will be very unlikely to get stopped

If there is a hard border imposed by the UK due to BrExit , the agencies above prime example will be a very good reference point for Border Force ( has no-one heard of reciprocity ) and we will only have ourselves to blame. The difference between here and the UK is consistency so I would be unsurprised if all those border points I mention above are checked.

I've asked before here for policy guidance from DFA or DOJ on this matter and strangely none has been forthcoming. A poster above mentions that each nation is free to impose their own rules. Fine - lets see what they are so.

Why don't you make an FOI request or ask your local TD to ask a Dail question?

As I said above I suspect the catalyst for the change in procedure was the very rapid upswing in immigrant numbers into Ireland and a desire to keep track of them as much as possible, large numbers of whom arrive via the UK and are not subject to travel freely around the CTA without having visas for both Ireland and the UK.

trellheim

As I said above I suspect the catalyst for the change in procedure was the very rapid upswing in immigrant numbers into Ireland and a desire to keep track of them as much as possible, large numbers of whom arrive via the UK and are not subject to travel freely around the CTA without having visas for both Ireland and the UK.

It is not impossible that such things happened, true.

However

1) The law is the law and should be applied consistently - I gave two counter examples.
2) Rules and policy should be public and subject to debate ; I can understand why GB and ourselves are different but that is no excuse for not having the debate as to why they are different - I make the point above about reciprocity .

On a recent DUB-Gatwick random border force check you could see the horror at some people being checked in the UK , these same CTA Irish folk have no probs queueing for ages at Dublin.

Personally I call it utter hypocrisy - but thats an opinion.

On a not unrelated matter I'd note we have INIS operating T1 and GNIB operating T2 ( for some , again, unknown reason )

tl;dr CTA passengers should be segregated like Gatwick etc all manage to do, and if necessary random checks carried out. This would vastly increase throughput in arrivals halls.

There is no legal requirement to individually check CTA travellers. Feel free to write your TDs on this.

In answer to your point regarding PQs previous answers have effectively been dodged by the Minister responsible.

Fred Swanson

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LXFlyer

Well in asking a Dail question - you have to be very specific in order to get the answer that you want.

Again I would imagine (and this is only an opinion) that a reason for the difference in procedures has been the fact that much fewer people arrive into the UK via Ireland from more high risk regions outside the EU than vice versa. We have only recently acquired direct flights from Africa for example.

The majority of people entering this State do so by air, and I imagine that the immigration authorities want to focus their efforts on that.

I'm not excusing the long waits at all - I do share the frustration regarding queues - that's down to both infrastructure and staffing.

But I can see why they do what they do, whether we like it or not.

LXFlyer

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

So how would you separate out said Irish citizens from other nationalities that are subject to full Irish immigration checks on a flight from the UK?

Go on the basis of trust and set up different queues with zero checks on the Irish queue?

I'm not sure that would work in practice.

Ultimately Irish immigration is a matter for Ireland and not the UK - so how do we police it if the CTA is not a full international agreement and there are virtually no common visas between the two countries?

trellheim

There is also the small matter of Irish citizens not being subject to immigration control.

Correct. I have always wondered what would happen if I pushed straight through the gate without showing any ID

manonboard

I'm irish, 10 minute wait about 3 weeks ago at 11:30pm.
My partner though.. Us citizen coming from spain with me (holiday).. 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was ridiculous. Two booths open for an enormous amount of people. it can easily take 5-15 minutes for a difficult passenger..I cannot see how this was so badly planned. It was so bad just waiting on the other side just watching the non moving queue. After travel, its difficult enough doing exercises like that. We were so tired.

Spanish Eyes

I have heard that passport/immigration checks boarding and disembarking from the Irish Sea Ferries is practically non existent. Same applies travelling to and from NI.

If the reason for the checks at the airport is illegal immigration, well surely it is easier to travel by ferry so?

Anyway, I suspect that many immigrants want to get to the UK not here, and if that is the case, the UK is not as nervous as GNIB is, at airports anyway WRT Ireland/UK flights..

trellheim

So how would you separate out said Irish citizens from other nationalities that are subject to full Irish immigration checks on a flight from the UK?

Go on the basis of trust and set up different queues with zero checks on the Irish queue?

I'm not sure that would work in practice.

As I mention above, the UK , one of the hardest immigration countries around, are happy to just do random checks. They are happy to implement the CTA in the spirit of it. We will only have ourselves to blame if UK act in a similar fashion.

LXFlyer

trellheim wrote: »

As I mention above, the UK , one of the hardest immigration countries around, are happy to just do random checks. They are happy to implement the CTA in the spirit of it. We will only have ourselves to blame if UK act in a similar fashion.

I am playing devils advocate here, so please bear that in mind, but surely what the UK do is up to them, and likewise what we do in terms of immigration is down to us, unless a full international treaty is established?

How would those people who do have to have their right to enter Ireland checked be policed if there were no checks on UK originating flights? Remember they have no rights to freedom of movement between the two countries.

I do honestly believe that the rationale for this was a desire to control/monitor the boom in immigrant numbers, something that the UK doesn't suffer in anything like the same numbers on flights between the two countries.

Simon Gruber Says

Section 11 of the Immigration Act 2004

11.—(1) Every person (other than a person under the age of 16 years) landing in the State shall be in possession of a valid passport or other equivalent document, issued by or on behalf of an authority recognised by the Government, which establishes his or her identity and nationality to the satisfaction of an immigration officer.

(2) Every person landing in or embarking from the State shall furnish to an immigration officer such information in such manner as the immigration officer may reasonably require for the purposes of the performance of his or her functions.

(3) A person who contravenes this section shall be guilty of an offence.

(4) This section does not apply to any person (other than a non-national) coming from or embarking for a place in the State, Great Britain or Northern Ireland.

So paragraph 4 says that you do not need to present ID to an Immigration Officer when arriving from the UK, unless you are a non-national. This seems contradictory as, how can the officer tell unless they saw your ID/Passport?

Paragraph 1 states that you must have a valid document that establishes your identity and national to the Immigration Officers satisfaction.

Paragraph 2 also seems to suggest that everyone, including Irish Citizens are obliged to answer whatever questions they ask, to determine if you are in fact a citizen, however, also stated in the act is that a civ Immigration Officer only has the power to detain a person they have reason to believe to be a non-national. Only a member of An Garda Siochana may detain an Irish citizen.

So, If you present them your valid Irish passport, they should not have a reason to believe that you are a non-national and therefore cannot detain you, the passport should establish your nationality as an Irish citizen, so do you really have to answer anything they say? And if you don't, what exactly can they do about it?

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

trellheim

Correct ( again )

What I take slight issue with is that it is *optional* for me to prove I am an Irish Citizen ( without this, we are required to do passport checks at Connolly, Dundalk and every other port of entry ) .

If the chap stops me and says "lets see your ID/license whatever" - he's within his rights to demand same - for sure. But there is no requirement to produce if he doesn't ask , so if I breeze through the gates, unless he stops me, I can't see why I have to give him anything.

Negative_G

Some really interesting discussion on this subject.

Someone else asked the question previously.

Say returning on a flight from the UK, I decided to proceed straight through the gate without showing ID as the 2004 Act seems to imply that I can do, what would happen?

I'm sure that it would cause a stir but you haven't committed ant offence if I'm reading the act correctly.

Tec Diver

I've had long queues in T1 and T2 in Dublin recently, about 40mins. I flew in to Schipol on Sunday and not only was there no delay, but they also have an electronic passport scanner. Kinda like self service at Tesco :-)
Heading back to Dublin T1 tomorrow, fingers crossed!

Spanish Eyes

Getting the ferry is an option. No checks, or so I have heard. Anyone any experience of travelling by sea and entering Ireland? Just for comparison purposes, as I do realise the ferry is not an option for many travelling from wherever.

That's how them illegal furriners are getting in. They don't do airports anymore.

But we citizens of Ireland have to put up with a painful process at airports to get back into our OWN country.

(It's ok, it is a tongue in cheek post, but might have substance just the same).

trellheim

GNIB seem to go faster than INIS - I do not know why

LiamaDelta

Passed through T1 immigration last night approximately 11.20pm, got through in less than 10 minutes. Staff were holding the queue at the stairs briefly to funnel them through to the main hall, but all in all not delay of any real consequence. The queue for non-EU passports looked pretty dismal though.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.