Plan to fingerprint visitors to EU welcomed

ALL visitors coming into and leaving the EU will be fingerprinted and have their details kept on an anti-terrorism electronic register under a proposal broadly welcomed by the Union’s justice ministers.

Ireland and Britain will take part in some of the new arrangements and also develop their own joint monitoring database, Ireland’s Justice Minister Brian Lenihan said.

The new system, which replicates the US security measures, should be ready to come into force in the middle of next year, the Slovenian Interior Minister Dragutin Mate said at a two-day meeting of EU ministers in Slovenia.