stifle

The immigration officers were mostly correct.

(1) The CTA benefit of travelling without a passport is afforded to UK and Irish nationals. If you have a "national ID card", it is very likely that you are not a UK or Irish national.
(2) Irish immigration officers can stamp in anyone they want and I rather doubt that EU law dictates anything on this. The UK Border Force has a policy of not stamping in certain groups of people on the grounds that a stamp implies the granting of "leave to enter" and those groups don't require "leave to enter". Ireland is a separate country and it is presumptuous to suppose that it has the same policies as the UK.
(3) You were not "denied entry" as the thread title suggests.
(4) It is wrong to suggest that nobody can travel between the UK and Ireland on a driving licence, but if the licence suggests that the holder may not be a UK or Irish citizen (such as by displaying a place of birth outside those two countries) then the immigration officer is within his rights to request proof of entitlement to use the CTA travel process, which proof may include a passport.

NickB

Back in the 1970s the UK used to give EU nationals entering the UK a card stamped with "Leave to Enter" the UK until it was found by the CJEU to be incompatible with EU Law on the ground that EU nationals are entitled to enter the UK by virtue of EU law and not by virtue of being given leave by UK authorities and suggesting otherwise by handing a card stamped with "leave to enter" would be incompatible with EU Law. The same would apply if a similar practice was followed in Ireland. So EU Law does regulate to some extent the stamping of passports, at any rate for EU nationals.

That said, the reasoning cannot fully be transposed to third country nationals, even when those third country nationals have a right to enter by virtue of being a family member of an EU national as the legal regimes are not 100% identical.

jedikiah

When Schengen started some individual ill-informed immigration officers in some countries started stamping UK passports on entry - although it didn't take long for this to be "stamped" out.

Calchas

It's for reasons of cost. DUB-LON is the second busiest [international] air corridor in the world. The suggestion that the UK government would suddenly start imposing immigration controls when it has never done so before would require a compelling motivation. There is no money to pay for the huge increase in border facilities required.

Source: IATA http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pag...-08-12-01.aspx

Andy33

I would like to think (though you can never be sure) that the UK government is not quite illogical enough to institute immigration controls on air services when it is perfectly possible (and there is no realistic way of stopping) people walking across the land border as often as they like. Cost would certainly be a major issue, yes, looking utterly foolish to the electorate at the same time tends to be a vote loser.

Microwave

This was my understanding as well.

Calchas

You are very optimistic!

HMG does spot checks on domestic and CTA arrivals and departures all the time.

ajax

I find this extremely difficult to believe. Do you have any link confirming this? I can think of several others that are busier.

And according to Wikipedia, DUB-LON is only the 14th-busiest within the EU, with half the passengers in 2011 that travelled MAD-BCL:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%2...ger_air_routes

And this doesn't even include other regional and global routes, several dozen of which have more travelers than DUB-LON. I think you should do some more research.

lorcancoyle

I'd take IATA over Wikipedia any day - and important caveat is international vs. domestic

So looks to be #1 in EU vs the Wikipedia data (which was airport pairs), but probably only top 15/20 globally given domestic Japan, Seoul, SA etc. pairs

http://www.iata.org/pressroom/pr/Pages/2014-08-12-01.aspx

ajax

Well that's more like it! It is worth pointing out that the wikipedia pages are all linked and sourced.

And of course the poster whom I quoted didn't distinguish between domestic/international

Calchas

Please see this table at the bottom of the article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...ir-routes.html

It's possible that the Torygraph is mistaken about its numbers from 2013, purportedly supplied by IATA, and indeed it is difficult to corroborate those numbers; especially given that FR, a major carrier on the route, is not a member of IATA.

IATA thinks that 3.6 million people travelled LON-DUB in 2013, the wikipedia article you found says 1.5 million in 2011. Given the economic upturn recently it's certainly possible they are both correct.

I am certainly happy to be corrected—and I mean that seriously, if you have access to the real data. But I am afraid I do not think a wikipedia article citing numbers that are half a decade old sourced by a dead link outweighs IATA via the Telegraph. I think you should do some more research.

Merry Christmas to one and all

Calchas

Deleted

Calchas

You're quite correct, I am sorry for the oversight. I shall amend my post.

The wikipedia source link for the EU routes appears to be dead.

stifle

My experience is not such. I regularly travel back and forth and have not once had any checks on departure from nor arrival in the UK.

lorcancoyle

I've certainly had it once at LHR (in maybe 50+ arrivals), and once at LCY - though the latter may just have been a mistake sending us in the wrong door!

So certainly a pretty rare occurrence based on my experience (plural of anecdote is not evidence though!)