39. (1) The Commissioners may make regulations in relation to all or any of the following matters:

(a) securing, paying, collecting, remitting or repaying of duties of customs;

(b) the procedures relating to conveyances, goods, crew and passengers and their baggage on their arrival in the State and departure from the State;

(c) applying any of the provisions of the Customs Acts to—

(i) pipelines and goods conveyed in or discharged from or charged into pipelines,

(ii) cables and electricity transmitted by such cables, or

(iii) postal packets in cross-border mail.

(2) The Minister may, subject to subsection (3), make regulations specifying the customs controls to apply in relation to, and generally regulating for customs purposes, the importation into or exportation from the State of any goods by land.

(3) In particular, but without prejudice to the generality of subsection (2), regulations under that subsection may—

(a) apply all or any of the provisions of the Customs Acts, subject to such modifications as the Minister considers appropriate, to the importation into or exportation from the State by land of any goods,

(b) prohibit the importation into or exportation from the State by land of all goods or any classes of goods, except by such routes within the State or at such places on the land frontier, and on such days and during such hours, as may be prescribed by those regulations,

(c) require any person in charge of any train or other vehicle entering or leaving the State by land, to stop such train or vehicle at any specified place, and to allow an officer of customs to examine such train or vehicle or any goods in either of them and to take account of such goods,

(d) require any person in charge of any vehicle travelling at any time, within such area as may be specified, to stop such vehicle upon request by an officer of customs and allow that officer to examine the vehicle and any goods in it and to take account of such goods, or

(e) require any person in charge of any train or other vehicle to stop such train or vehicle and to answer all such questions relating to his or her journey, or to any goods conveyed by the train or vehicle as may be put to him or her by an officer of customs.

(4) Regulations made under this section may contain such incidental, supplementary and consequential provisions as appear to the Commissioners or the Minister, as the case may be, to be necessary for the purposes of giving full effect to the Customs Acts.

(5) Every regulation made under this section shall be laid before Dáil Éireann as soon as may be after it is made and, if a resolution annulling that regulation is passed by Dáil Éireann within the next 21 days on which that House has sat after the regulation is laid before it, the regulation shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under it.

(6) A person who contravenes a provision of regulations made under this section which is stated in the regulations to be a penal provision, commits an offence.

(7) A person convicted of an offence under this section is liable, on summary conviction, to a fine of €5,000.

(8) In this section—

“cable” means a cable or system of cables, together with any apparatus or associated works, used for the transmission of electricity into or out of the State;

“pipeline” means a pipe or system of pipes, together with any apparatus or associated works, used for the conveyance of goods into or out of the State.