Bag and Tag Aer Lingus

If one has printed out boarding cards by checking online with Aer Lingus and you have 2 bags paid for , do all members of your party have to be at the bag and tag desk when you drop the bags off ? i.e. could wife be dropped off at departures and she check in both bags (one on each baording pass) while he drops car off in long term car park ? Do you need to show passport or just be in receipt of boarding pass ?

I only used this twice, and both times I was on my own -- I assume you mean the new self-service drop-off downstairs?
As far as I remember, the only people staffing this facility were a few people who were there to assist if people had problems. Nobody asked for a passport or anything, I just got my boarding card from the machine and scanned it at the drop off to print out the luggage label. Good system by the way, should speed up the check-in process once people get used to it. Biggest problem with it is delays if you get behind someone who can't read the instructions.
As far as I can see, there should be no problem doing what you suggest at present. However there may be a security tightening-up on this one, I was able to go all the way to the plane last week for a flight to Germany without showing my passport, using the pin number at the check-in machine and using the boarding card to drop off my luggage. Can't see that lasting!

I don't think I can answer your question for sure, but here's my story....

We went to the US last week and checked in online. However, Aer Lingus gave us different boarding cards at the 'web check-in desk'. (This was really just one of the normal check-in desks.) There was no separate tag and drop area there last week (none that I could see, anyway). At the web check-in, they took our bags (our bags were put on the normal conveyor behind the ground staff's desks) and they gave us different boarding cards (made from the usual harder card). And they checked our passports at the web check-in.

On the return leg from the US, it was the same story, except we then had to take our bags to the tag/drop area after we had exchanged our home-printed passes for the card ones at the web check-in.

It seems a bit pointless giving us different boarding cards, even though we had printed out versions from beforehand. But then, the inefficiency of Aer Lingus never ceases to amaze me!

I travelled with Ryanair earlier in December and they allow you to use the same boarding piece of paper as we had printed out.

similar story here when travelling to paris and amsterdam, checked in on line, went to bag and tag desk and lady at desk took both passports, checked them and re-printed the boarding passes and gave them bak to us......makes no sense but thats aer lingus for you!

That's why i posted, the website says that they reprint the boarding cards ! Must be something to do with the fact that the security personnel can see that passports have been checked if they are the proper boarding cards maybe?

I misinterpreted the OP, I thought the question was about the new self service drop-off downstairs. If you're flying to anywhere out of area 14 (?) downstairs, you check in on the machine, then take your boarding pass to the scales and print off a luggage label. Once you've attached the label to the bag, you press the button and it trundles off, to reappear in the destination airport (hopefully). There are loads of scales, so no delays except for head-scratchers.
It's a good system, a logical extension of the self service check-in. I was always puzzled at the fact that I could check in in minutes on the machine, then had to queue with manual checkers-in to drop off the bag.
It takes Aerlingus and Aer rianta a long time to do things, but sometimes they get it right. With the exception of a security flaw in this system, this will be good when they have it sorted.