Minister for Tourism Leo Varadkar has called for Ireland and Britain to become a common travel zone like parts of mainland Europe.
Mr Varadkar said tourists and business visitors should not be forced to source one set of travel papers for the UK and a second set for th Republic.
“This means 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,” he told the British Irish Parliamentary Assembly at Leinster House in Dublin.
Mr Varadkar said Ireland and Britain could become a “mini-Schengen” referring to the 20 countries in mainland Europe signed up to common travel and visa rules.
In Ireland, a visa waiver for UK visitors has been extended until the end of October 2016. It allows long-haul travellers to pass in to Ireland without additional travel documents.
“While the visa waiver is a step forward, it should be just that - one step of many to come,” he 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 Giant’s Causeway. And it makes even less sense to the tourist.”
Citizens of the UK and Ireland are covered by the Common Travel Zone which allows passport-free movement between all the islands including the Isle of Man and Channel Islands.
The theme of the latest parliamentary assembly, sitting for the first time in the Seanad, was about making business easier between the two countries.
Mr Varadkar also urged ministers in both countries to pursue the removal of significant legal and administrative barriers to mutual recognition of penalty points. A deal has been struck to bring in the new cross-border regime in 2014.
“Not doing something because it is difficult is a quitters approach to politics. And we are not quitters,” he said.
The visa idea would be the latest initiative to be adopted by the Government in a bid to boost visitor numbers, following the cutting of VAT for the tourism and leisure sector to 9 per cent.
The assembly was originally formed as the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body in 1990 and has met 44 times.