The Courts of Justice Act, 1924

Appointment of Peace Commissioners.

88.—(1) The Minister for Home Affairs may from time to time by warrant under his hand appoint and remove such and so many fit and proper persons as he shall think expedient in each county to be called “Feadhmannaigh Shíochána” or (in English) “Peace Commissioners” and to perform and exercise within such county and (if so expressed in his warrant of appointment) within the counties immediately adjoining such county the duties and powers of Peace Commissioners under this Act.

(2) So far as may be practicable having regard to all relevant circumstances, every person appointed to be a Peace Commissioner in a County which includes an area in which the Irish language is in general use shall have a knowledge of the Irish language adequate for the transaction of the business of his office in that language.

(3) A Peace Commissioner shall have all the powers and authorities which immediately before the 6th day of December, 1922, were vested in a Justice of the Peace in respect of the several matters following, that is to say:—

(a) signing summonses;

(b) signing warrants;

(c) administering oaths and taking declarations, affirmations, informations, bonds and recognizances;

(d) committing dangerous lunatics and idiots to lunatic asylums under Section 10 of the Lunacy (Ireland) Act, 1867, and providing for the remuneration of the medical officer and the examiner of lunatics under Section 14 of the Lunatic Asylums (Ireland) Act, 1875 ;

(e) signing certificates for the admission of lunatics and idiots to lunatic asylums;

(f) signing the certificate required by Section 2 of the Registration of Clubs (Ireland) Act, 1904 ;

(g) condemning and ordering the destruction or disposal of any article intended for the food of man which appears to him to be diseased or unsound or unwholesome or unfit for the food of man under Section 133 of the Public Health (Ireland) Act, 1878 , as amended by Section 28 of the Public Health Acts Amendment Act, 1890 :

Provided always that any summons against any member of the Gárda Síochána shall be signed by a Justice of the District Court.

(4) Whenever any person charged with having committed an indictable offence shall be arrested by a member of the Gárda Síochána such person shall unless a Justice of a District Court is immediately available forthwith be brought before a Peace Commissioner, who after hearing such evidence as may be offered shall remand such person either in custody or in such bail as the Peace Commissioner shall think fit and remit the case for hearing before a Justice of the District Court on a date not later than the next sitting of the District Court to be held in the District where such person was arrested.