First Previous (PART 12 General Enforcement and Offence Provisions relating to Railway Safety and Conduct of Persons on Railways) Next (PART 14 Provisions Relating to Córas Iompair Éireann)

31 2005

Railway Safety Act 2005

PART 13

Procedural

Prosecution of summary offences.

122. —(1) Proceedings for an offence under this Act may be brought and prosecuted summarily by the Commission.

(2) The Commission shall be entitled—

(a) to view and take copies of any record or other evidence gathered or obtained by the Investigation Unit during the course of its investigation of a railway incident under section 58 , and

(b) subject to section 58 (17), to submit as evidence in criminal or other proceedings any such record or other evidence.

(3) Notwithstanding section 10(4) of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act 1851, summary proceedings for any offence under this Act may be instituted at any time within 2 years after the date of the offence.

Offences by bodies corporate.

123. —Where an offence under this Act is committed by a body corporate and is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of a person being a director, manager, secretary or other officer of the body corporate or a person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, that person as well as the body corporate is guilty of an offence and is liable to be proceeded against and punished as if he or she were guilty of the first-mentioned offence.

Cost of prosecutions.

124. —Where a person is convicted of an offence under this Act, the court shall, unless it is satisfied that there are special and substantial reasons for not so doing, order that person to pay to the Commission the costs and expenses, measured by the court, incurred by the Commission in relation to the investigation, detection and prosecution of the offence, including costs and expenses incurred in the carrying out of tests, examinations and analyses and in respect of the remuneration and other expenses of employees or persons engaged by the Commission.

Service of notices, etc.

125. —(1) Where a notice, notification or direction is required under this Act to be given to or served on a person, the notice or direction shall be in writing and shall be addressed to that person and shall be given to the person in one of the following ways:

(a) by delivering it to the person;

(b) by leaving it at the address at which the person ordinarily resides or carries on business;

(c) by sending it by post in a pre-paid registered letter or by any other form of recorded delivery service, addressed to the person at the address at which the person ordinarily resides or carries on business;

(d) if an address for the service of notices, notifications or directions has been furnished by the person, by leaving it at, or sending it by pre-paid registered post or by any other form of recorded delivery service addressed to the person to, that address;

(e) in any case where the Commission considers that the immediate giving of the notice, notification or direction is required, by sending it, by means of a facsimile machine or electronic mail, to a device or facility for the reception of facsimiles or electronic mail located at the address at which the person ordinarily resides or carries on business or, if an address for the service of notices has been furnished by the person, that address, provided that the sender's—

(i) facsimile machine generates a message confirming successful transmission of the total number of pages of the notice, or

(ii) facility for the reception of electronic mail generates a message confirming a receipt of the electronic mail.

(2) For the purposes of this section, a company registered under the Companies Acts 1963 to 2005, shall be deemed to be ordinarily resident at its registered office and every other body corporate and every unincorporated body shall be deemed to be ordinarily resident at its principal office or place of business.

Disclosure of records.

126. —(1) The Investigation Unit, the Commission, a railway undertaking or any other person concerned with the conduct of an investigation under section 53 or 58 or with an inquiry under section 64 shall not disclose the following records to any other party for purposes other than such investigation or inquiry:

(a) statements taken by an inspector, railway undertaking or other person in the course of the investigation or inquiry;

(b) medical or private information regarding persons involved in the railway incident which is the subject of the investigation or inquiry;

(c) voice or video recordings or transcripts of such recordings;

(d) data recordings or output from such recordings which are not relevant to the investigation or inquiry;

(e) opinions expressed in the analysis of information; and

(f) observations submitted in accordance with section 62 (3) where the person who has submitted the observations so requests.

(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the Commission or tribunal may disclose a particular record where it considers, in respect of the particular record, that the probable benefits to the public interest from such disclosure would outweigh any adverse impact of such disclosure on that investigation or inquiry or on any future investigation by the Commission, or railway undertaking or an inquiry by a tribunal.

(3) Subsection (1) shall not preclude the Commission, a railway undertaking or a tribunal from including such records in a report under section 53 , 60, 62 or 64 where the information is pertinent to the analysis of the cause of a railway incident or the recommendations arising from the investigation of or inquiry into such incident.

(4) Any record, other than a record under subsection (1), held by the Commission or a tribunal in the course of an investigation or inquiry shall not be made available by the Commission or tribunal to any other party except for the purposes of an investigation or inquiry until after the day of publication of a report under section 60 or 64 or the finalisation of a report under section 53 unless the Commission or tribunal as the case may be deems it appropriate in the public interest to do so.

(5) For the avoidance of doubt, information specified in subsection (1) shall—

(a) where held by a railway undertaking, be provided to the Commission or a tribunal on receipt of a request from the Commission or the tribunal, and

(b) where held by the Commission or a tribunal in relation to an investigation or an inquiry relating to an international service, and where the Commission or the tribunal considers that there is a benefit in so doing, be provided on receipt of a request from a relevant competent authority in another state, to such authority.

(6) In this section, “tribunal” means a tribunal of inquiry under section 64 .