The respective governments of Ireland and Britain today signed a visa agreement that allows prospective international tourists to visit both countries with a single visa.
This will entail “the automated and seamless sharing and cross-check” of immigration data between Dublin and London. Irish officials will collect biometric data to match that needed by British authorities.
In the near future it will be expanded to cover visitors from other countries who “will be able, for the first time, to visit both the UK and Ireland, including moving freely between north and south of the island of Ireland on a single visa,” according to the Department of Justice.
Worries about illegal immigration and terrorism have occasioned increased co-operation in recent years between the Department of Justice’s Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service and the British Home Office to ensure the Common Travel Area.
