Thread: Irish Justice Minister announces addition of Thailand to Visa Waiver Programme

Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter, announces addition of Thailand to Visa Waiver Programme.

Tourist and other short-stay visitor numbers likely to rise.

The Minister for Justice and Equality, Alan Shatter, TD, today announced that citizens of Thailand will be able to avail of the Irish Short-stay Visa Waiver Programme.

Based on current experience with other visa waiver countries in Asia, this is likely to prove a significant boost to efforts to attract more visitors to Ireland from Thailand.
The Minister has signed the necessary legislation to add Thailand to the list of seventeen countries currently covered by the Programme. The Minister launched the Short-stay Visa Waiver Programme, the first programme of its kind in the history of the State, on 1 July 2011. This allows visitors or business people from seventeen countries who have lawfully entered the UK, including Northern Ireland, on a valid UK visa, to travel on to Ireland without the requirement to obtain an Irish visa. CSO figures that there was a 38% increase in the number of visitors from the countries involved in 2012 compared to 2010, the last full year before the introduction of the Programme.
The Minister said that the Programme was an "unqualified success" and that the CSO figures demonstrated a real positive impact of the Government’s initiative.

"Tourists have started to come back again to Ireland in increasing numbers and the introduction of the visa waiver programme as an aid to this resurgence in the market has been described as a step change. I am delighted to add the growing tourism and business market of Thailand to the list of countries covered by the Programme", he added. The Minister pointed out that well over 500,000 Thais visited Europe in 2012 with about 140,000 going to the UK but less than 6,000 coming to Ireland. "This shows the potential of this move", the Minister said. The waiver opens up visa free travel to Ireland via the UK for this large pool of visitors. As a side trip they may now travel on here for up to 90 days without an Irish visa and without the necessity to complete any further paperwork.
In addition to the paperwork involved, Thai nationals would also have had to pay the cost of a visit visa i.e. €60 per adult and child. Like all other nationals of countries in the Irish visa waiver programme, they will no longer bear these costs.

He also pointed out that officials of the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service of his Department continue to work with their UK counterparts on developing reciprocal visa arrangements for the Common Travel Area for introduction in the middle of next year. "The eventual plan is to have a system whereby only one visa is required to travel to and around the Common Travel Area", explained the Minister. "In the meantime, the Irish Visa Waiver Programme continues to bring significant benefits to the economy."

Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter, TD, announces addition of Thailand to Visa Waiver Programme

The grant of a UK visa to a non EU citizen will now allow a person to enter the Republic of Ireland and the grant of an Irish visa will allow a person to enter the UK.. you are correct, there are NO checks on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic...... There are an estimated 30,000 'undocumented migrants' in Ireland in a population of 4,576,000.

There are just over 19,000 documented Nigerians resident in the Republic....most entered through the Asylum process.

International asylum law states that an asylum seeker must claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in after leaving their home country, since there are no direct flights from Africa to Ireland, it is a logical conclusion, that person has landed in the UK mainland, then traveled north to Scotland, crossed over to NI and traveled south across the open border

I’m all for giving people refuge who deserve it but you’d have to be an idiot to believe someone could board a plane from Africa to Europe without a visa, yet when they arrive across the unchecked border into the Irish Republic they don’t have any documents, the reason being they burn their documents so they can not be deported.

In an era of austerity, I'm all for targeting illegals from the system. I'm also 100% behind other states who take action against people, who bypassed their immigration controls.

The Central Statistics Office has released the annual population and migration statistics for the 12 months to April 2014. The following is a breakdown of some of the main findings:
Number of Irish people leaving fell 20 per cent, from 50,900 to 40,700
A total of 81,900 people of all nationalities left in 2013/14, down 8 per cent on the previous year.........do the Irish ever stay at at home
60,600 immigrated, up from 55,900

11,600 Irish people returned home from abroad, down from 15,700 the previous year
47 per cent of emigrants had a third level qualifications
More than 16,000 were students before leaving
The UK is still the most popular destination, attracting 17,900 people from Ireland (a fall of 18 per cent on the previous year)
Australia saw the biggest fall in popularity, with numbers down 35 per cent from 15,400 to 10,000.
Canada also witnessed a drop, from 5,300 in 2012/13 to 4,700 in 2013/14

Emigration of Irish nationals falls 20% but 40,700 still left last year | Generation Emigration

The Irish ( departure ) Air Travel Tax was abolished in the 2014 Budget.......note Thailand $22 and United Kingdom..... Between $20 (band A, lowest class) and $300 (band D, any other class) Between £13 (band A, lowest class) and £194 (band D, any other class)

Departure tax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia