(4) The sums payable by the Postmaster-General or Irish Post Office to the other of them in pursuance of this Act shall, if not paid out of the Post Office moneys, be paid from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom or of Ireland, as the case requires, to the other Exchequer.

(5) Sections forty-eight to fifty-two of the Telegraph Act 1863, and any enactment amending the same, shall apply to all telegraphic lines of the Irish Government in like manner as to the telegraphs of a company within the meaning of that Act.

21.—­(1) As from the appointed day there shall be transferred to the Irish Government the post office savings banks in Ireland and all such powers and duties of any department or officer in Great Britain as are connected with post office savings banks, trustee savings banks or friendly societies in Ireland, and the same may be regulated by Irish Act.

(2) The Treasury shall publish not less than six months’ previous notice of the transfer of savings banks.

(3) If before the date of the transfer any depositor in a post office savings bank so requests, his deposit shall, according to his request, either be paid to him or transferred to a post office savings bank in Great Britain, and after the said date the depositors in a post office savings bank in Ireland shall cease to have any claim against the Postmaster-General or the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, but shall have the like claim against the Government and Consolidated Fund of Ireland.

(4) If before the date of the transfer the trustees of any trustee savings bank so request, then, according to the request, either all sums due to them shall be repaid and the savings bank closed, or those sums shall be paid to the Irish Government, and after the said date the trustees shall cease to have any claim against the National Debt Commissioners or the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, but shall have the like claim against the Government and Consolidated Fund of Ireland.

(5) Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section, if a sum due on account of any annuity or policy of insurance which has before the above-mentioned notice been granted through a post office or trustee savings bank is not paid by the Irish Government, that sum shall be paid out of the Exchequer of the United Kingdom.

Irish Appeals and Decision of Constitutional Questions

22.—­(1) The appeal from courts in Ireland to the House of Lords shall cease; and where any person would, but for this Act, have a right to appeal from any court in Ireland to the House of Lords, such person shall have the like right to appeal to Her Majesty the Queen in Council; and the right so to appeal shall not be affected by any Irish Act; and all enactments relating to appeals to Her Majesty the Queen in Council, and to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, shall apply accordingly.

(2) When the Judicial Committee sit for hearing appeals from a court in Ireland, there shall be present not less than four Lords of Appeal, within the meaning of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876, and at least one member who is or has been a judge of the Supreme Court in Ireland.