District Justices (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923

Appointment of Clerks of District Courts.

5.—(1) From and after the passing of this Act the existing offices of Clerk of Petty Sessions shall cease to exist and every existing Clerk of Petty Sessions shall cease to hold his office.

(2) From and after the passing of this Act the Minister shall and may from time to time as occasion requires appoint fit and proper persons to be District Court Clerks in the several Court Districts constituted under this Act and may appoint each such person to be District Court Clerk in one or in any greater number of such Court Districts.

(3) Each District Court Clerk appointed under this section shall hold his office by such tenure as the Minister shall prescribe and shall be paid a salary in accordance with a scale to be prescribed by the Minister with the concurrence of the Minister for Finance.

(4) The salaries of the District Court Clerks appointed under this section shall be paid out of the same funds as those out of which the salaries of the existing Clerks of Petty Sessions have been heretofore paid and any deficiency in such funds to meet the amounts of such salaries shall to such extent as the Minister for Finance may sanction be made good out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas: Provided that nothing in this sub-section shall prejudice the power of deduction conferred by Section 2 of the Petty Sessions Clerks (Ireland) Act, 1881.

(5) Each District Court Clerk appointed under this Act shall perform in respect of his District or Districts the like duties as have heretofore been performed by the existing Clerks of Petty Sessions in respect of the existing Petty Sessions Districts and shall also perform such other duties as shall from time to time be allotted to him by the District Justice.

(6) Each District Court Clerk appointed under this Act shall have in each County in which any part of his district or districts is situate, the same power and authority to sign District Court Summonses as is by this Act conferred on a Peace Commissioner in that County.

(7) The existing office of Registrar of Petty Sessions Clerks shall from and after the passing of this Act be called “The Registrar of District Court Clerks” and such Registrar shall perform in relation to the District Court Clerks appointed under this section the like duties as he has heretofore performed in relation to the existing Clerks of Petty Sessions.

(8) In this section the word “existing” means existing on the 6th day of December, 1922.