BF gets 3rd Irish visa

When I pointed out to him that he was breaking the law, his reply was that "they don't check for passports on the buses".

You can tell your friend that you were in correct in that he was "lucky" as they DO check the buses and I know this from being on the bus when they did - in my case this was on the Belfast to Dublin "airport" bus but they had set up a check point and the Garda ( Southern Police force) were pulling in random buses and walking up and down the aisle and asking for ID in theory from everyone but in practice it turned out they ignored the local pale faced pasty white irish looking people and went for the Eastern Europeans and Asians that were aboard, when they came to me I asked what was up as it was SO unusual to see this sort of checkpoint and the Guard just said they were looking for illegal immigrants. To be fair neither I nor any of my friends traveling with me on the bus had EVER seen this sort of check before, either North or South and never have again, however it shows that it does go on.

remember that they will have to brave the Larne to Stranraer ferry too, that would seem to be a more logical point to have spot checks.

Again even though I mentioned the same crossing earlier people should be aware that they DO have check points there as well and whilst they are random I'm guessing the chances of a car being stopped with an Asian guy in it just might be higher than one without and likewise sometimes there is also a second checkpoint as you leave the ferry at the other end which actually is in my experience actually somewhat stricter than the one on the way out of N.Ireland, so it's very much a matter of random luck and with the heavy fines involved in "people smuggling" ( as that's is most certainly how it would be viewed by the authorities) I'm really not sure that it's worth taking the risk.

Speaking personally if it was a short trip whilst on holiday or something just between the North and the South or Ireland and you were in your own private car etc, then I probably would risk it as the chances of getting stopped / caught are very low, but likewise that's all fine until you're involved in a car accident or something crazy and then it all goes to shit when the police man asks for the ID of everyone in the car perhaps and the whole thing starts to unravel :-(