A local solicitor who regularly travels between Donegal and Dublin through Carrickfinn Airport was repeatedly asked for his passport despite being on a domestic flight.
Brendan Twomey, from Dunfanaghy, frequently uses the service for business purposes and is regularly brought through immigration customs rather than a domestic channel.
According to the Foreign Affairs and Trade website, ‘It is not necessary to have a passport for individual travel within a country but some form of official photographic identification is normally required by airlines before they will permit you to board’.
When Mr Twomey challenged immigration on the issue at Dublin Airport on Friday last, immigration officials said they were obliged to protect Irish borders – but Mr Twomey had identification stating he lived in Donegal.
Speaking about the ordeal, he told Donegal Daily: “I was actually going to Dublin for the day for business. I checked in at Donegal Airport and I got my boarding card before my departure.
Solicitor Brendan Twomey
“When you arrive at Dublin Airport you are brought into the immigration hall with the international passengers and there is no separate channel for domestic passengers to go through.
“I went up to the desk and I produced my boarding card that said I had come from Donegal. The immigration officer then requested that they see my passport.
“Now I told them I didn’t need a passport because I was travelling within the state, but they persisted and I told them I didn’t have my passport as I never travel with my one on domestic flights.
“She responded by saying, ‘I am protecting the borders of the state,’ but I wasn’t crossing any borders, I was travelling with my own state and I told her, ‘You do know Donegal is part of the Irish state.'”
Twomey was eventually granted access when he showed his driving license but it raises concerns as too why hundreds of domestic passengers every year are being stopped at an immigration centre if they are from the state.
Ireland’s busiest airport recently announced plans to spend €900 million by 2023 on an expansion that will allow it to handle up to 40 million passengers a year.
Chief executive of Dublin Airport Authority, Dalton Phillips, recently admitted in an interview with the Irish Times, that infrastructure was needed ‘rapidly’ at the airport to stop it from being ‘constrained’.
Dublin Aiport was contacted for comment but directed Donegal Daily to the Irish Naturalisation Immigration Services – but the contact provided (www.gov.inis.ie) didn’t work.
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