27. — (1) Subsections (3) to (5) of section 272 of the Principal Act (which prescribe the contents of declarations of survey) shall cease to have effect.

(2) Subsection (2) of section 272 of the Principal Act (which requires a surveyor to deliver declarations of survey to the owner of a ship), section 273 of that Act (which requires the owner to deliver the declaration to the Minister) and section 275 of that Act (which relates to appeals to the court of survey) shall apply to surveys for the purpose of the issue of any certificate in respect of a ship under this Act as they apply to surveys for the purpose of the issue of passenger steamers' certificates.

(3) A safety certificate or radio certificate or an exemption certificate stating that a ship is wholly exempt from the provisions of the Safety Convention relating to F32[radiocommunications] and F33[navigation and tracking systems and equipment] shall be in force for one year and a safety equipment certificate shall be in force for twenty-four months, from the date of its issue, or for such shorter period as may be specified in the certificate, but no such certificate shall remain in force after notice is given by the Minister to the owner or master of the ship in respect of which it has been issued that the Minister has cancelled the certificate.

(4) An exemption certificate, other than a certificate stating that a ship is wholly exempt from the provisions of the Safety Convention relating to F32[radiocommunications] and F33[navigation and tracking systems and equipment], shall be in force for the same period as the corresponding qualified certificate.

(5) The Minister may grant an extension of any certificate issued under this Act in respect of a ship registered in the State for a period not exceeding one month from the date when the certificate would, but for the extension, have expired, or, if the ship is absent from the State on that date, for a period not exceeding five months from that date.

(6) Any general safety certificate or short-voyage safety certificate, whether qualified or not, may be combined in one document with a passenger steamer's certificate.

(7) Any certificate issued by the Minister under this Act, and any passenger steamer's certificate, whether or not combined in one document with a safety certificate under subsection (6) of this section, shall be admissible in evidence.

(8) The following provisions of the Principal Act shall apply to and in relation to certificates issued by the Minister, and ships certified, under this Act in the same manner as they apply to and in relation to passenger steamers' certificates and passenger steamers, namely, section 276 (which relates to the transmission of a certificate to the owner of the steamer), section 279 (which relates to the cancellation of certificates), section 280 (which relates to the surrender of certificates no longer in force), section 281 (which relates to the posting up of a certificate on board) and section 282 (which relates to the forging and falsification of certificates).

(9) The Minister may request the government of a country to which the Safety Convention applies to issue in respect of a ship registered in the State any certificate the issue of which is authorised under this Act; and a certificate issued in pursuance of such a request and containing a statement that it has been so issued shall have effect for the purposes of this Act as if it had been issued by the Minister and not by the government of that country.