Schengen opt-out could impact on Irish travellers

IRISH citizens could be left waiting in line to have their passports checked at the borders to the rest of Europe because the country has chosen to stay outside the Schengen area, EU officials have confirmed.

The European Commission has outlined a comprehensive programme to make the EU’s borders more secure to reduce the millions of illegal immigrants and cut down on criminal activity. It would include fingerprinting and screening all visitors, checking them in and out when they arrive and leave; fast-track automatic border gates for Schengen citizens; and sophisticated satellites to watch borders for illegal immigrants.

But most of it will not apply to Britain and Ireland because both have opted to stay outside Schengen and set up their own separate e-borders system. Britain has committed more than €1 billion to develop the system and Ireland hopes to link into this.

A government spokesperson said yesterday that they would be doing everything necessary to make sure that Ireland’s system was compatible with the rest of the EU to ensure seamless travel for Irish citizens and visitors coming to the country.

Frontex, the border control co-ordinating body for the Schengen area, would also be beefed up especially in the area of protecting the sea borders. However, Ireland and Britain are not part of Frontex because of their opt-out of Schengen, although they can choose at the beginning of each year if they wish to take part in certain operations, and contribute funding to that project.

Dublin Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa said there was no good reason why Ireland was excluding itself from Schengen.

“We opted out because Britain did and we want to ensure the border with the North remains open, but a lot of people believe we should have our own independent policy on this, and if we did so Britain would have to look again at their position on Schengen.”

MEP Gay Mitchell believes that the Government should come to an arrangement with Britain over maintaining a single travel area with the North, even if it meant people from the North having to show identification when entering Britain.

Joining Schengen would also allow Ireland to become a full member of Frontex or be part of a European Coast Guard which, given the level of drug smuggling into Ireland and other crime, would help protect our maritime borders, he said.

“We would have a better chance of protecting our people against criminals if we worked with the rest of Europe on this and stopped letting Britain dictate our policy”, he said.