"Rudi" wrote in message
...

Simon,
regarging this post, and your previous comment to my last
night's post:


On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 07:46:13 -0000, "simon calder"
wrote:

However, one thing, largely, travel between member states on 'mainland
Europe' is passport free - For Europeans.

No Simon,
it is not, and has not been, passport free. Only Border Control free.

As most people who have done this will have experienced, travel from
France
by vehicle onto ANY other member state generally does NOT encounter border
crossings where passports are required.

Yes, this is how it works in practice. However, no-one is exempt from
possessing a proof of citizenship, which must be shown upon request
from the authorities.

Airports may differ and to and from the UK you need your passport
(occassionally by Eurostar avoids checks ......since the debacle with MP
May
and the Passport Director it's tightened up)

Now this is another matter. Airlines are obligated to verify
travellers' eligibility to enter the host country before allowing
them to board the plane- failure to do so will cause the airline quite
heavy fines. Which means the airlines take the issue seriously.

And UK is not a special case in requiring passports from travellers-
point is that UK does not have a national identity card system,
unlike most other european countries, and therefore a passport
is the only legal travel document for UK citizens. A national driver's
licence will never do as an official travel document. Not UK, nor not
any other european countries', either.

I do grant that I am not familiar with practices regarging UK -Ireland
travel, however I do suspect that you are referring to travel within
UK (=to Northern Ireland), while direct ship routes to the Republic
of Ireland would fall into same category as any other european travel.
Please correct me if I have it wrong.

Nope.

The rules for crossing the border between the UK/Ireland are the same for
the sea crossing as they are for the land one. That is, no ID is required.

There is however (as per my other post), a completely different requirement
for the ship operator to have a list of passengers for safety reasons and
some form of ID is required whether the crossing is to the North or the
South, but a document much less secure than a passport is sufficient.

tim