[caption id="attachment_71838" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Minister Varadkar. "]
Ireland and Britain should become a "common travel zone," Irish transport minister, Leo Varadkar, has stated.
The call has been made in a bid to make Ireland more attractive to lucrative foreign investment, and to prevent frustration and confusion for visitors who might be forced to have two sets of travel visas in order to cross the border to or from the North.
Countries in mainland Europe already operate under this proposed method, and Mr. Varadkar said a similar set-up should be put in place between the neighboring islands.
Up until October 2016, Ireland has a "visa waiver" that allows long-haul travelers to the UK to enter the Republic.
"While the visa waiver is a step forward, it should be just that - one step of many to come," Varadkar said.
"It makes no sense to me that a tourist flying into Dublin from Dubai needs a separate visa to travel to the Titanic Experience in Belfast and to see the Giants Causeway. And it makes even less sense to the tourist.
"This would mean that there are real opportunities to attract more high-value, high-spending visitors from rapidly growing economies like Brazil, India, China and Russia to both Britain and Ireland."
Citizens of Ireland and the UK can already pass freely between the two states without having to go through passport control as part of an existing internal "Common Travel Zone."
It is hoped that changes for overseas visitors will help reflect recent findings that many travelers across the globe fail to understand the border situation, viewing Ireland as a single entity and being unaware of the need for separate travel documents.
