Mr Blunkett's ID card scheme is running on apace.

"Mr Harrison" [the head of the Home Office's identity card policy unit] "also outlined the latest Home Office thinking on on whether or not the one million Irish nationals living in Britain will have to carry UK identity cards...

Mr Harrison told a Law Society conference yesterday that
ministers had started with the assumption that information on
the pattern of everyday transactions involving each card would
not be kept on the central computer database.

But following representations from the information commissioner
they were now minded to keep information "about the audit of
transactions" to allow the authorities to investigate abuses of the
scheme...

The senior Home Office official also revealed the current thinking
on how to deal with the Irish problem. The 1949 Ireland Act
specifies that Irish citizens living in Britain enjoy total freedom of
movement between the two countries...

Mr Harrison said the plan now was to allow Irish nationals in
Britain to choose whether to be treated on an equivalent basis to
a British national or as an EU foreign national. He said there
would be a separate document which Irish nationals could obtain
which would not be a foreign national's resident's permit to
reflect their special status. "