Article 27 of the Constitution provides that in certain circumstances a petition may be presented to the President by members of the Oireachtas. The petition must be in writing, must be signed by the petitioners and the signatures of the petitioners must be verified in the manner prescribed by law. The purpose of this Bill is to make the necessary prescription, and I think the sections of the Bill are self-explanatory.
Section I provides for the verification of signatures of members of Dáil Eireann, and Section 2 provides for the verification of the signatures of the members of Seanad Eireann. In each case the verification-will take the form of a certificate in whatsoever may be the appropriate form. The general assumption is that in most cases the signatures will be verified by the appropriate officers of the House to which the petitioner belongs. In the case of the Seanad it will be the Clerk of the Seanad or the Clerk Assistant of the Seanad. In cases where, perhaps, it might not be convenient for the petitioner to have his or her signature verified by these officers, then he or she can have it verified by a certificate signed by a justice of the District Court, a commissioner for oaths or an officer of the Gárda Síochána not below the rank of superintendent, written on the petition immediately below the signature to which it relates.
Section 3 provides that the acceptance of verification in the form I have mentioned can be taken by the President as sufficient evidence of the genuineness of the signature. Section 4 deals with offences and the penalties which attach to forgery of a signature or any other abuses of the procedure under the Act. In connection with Section 4, I may mention that it is proposed to make a verbal amendment in the section which will not change its essential content.
