I move that the order for the Second Stage be discharged and that the Bill be withdrawn.
I am withdrawing the Bill because I am assured by the Minister that a practical desideratum which was intended by the Bill will be incorporated in legislation which he expects will be introduced at an early date, the draft of which at present awaits the necessary Government approval. This relates to an amendment of the Succession Act, 1965, relative to the power to grant representation to a trust corporation. I am satisfied that if the language proposed in section 2 of the Bill, which I move to be discharged, is not incorporated equivalent language will be in this legislation. I am further satisfied with regard to two other sections of the Bill relative to the, as I think unintended, tax consequences of the Succession Act, that the Minister will recommend his colleague, who is in the House today, to consider sympathetically the proposals contained in these sections both on the basis of the information I have already provided to the Minister for Justice and additional information which he has invited me to collect for him and which I shall do.
With regard to the other sections in the Bill, which I propose, with the permission of the House, to withdraw, I am satisfied from what the Minister has told me that, having regard to the fact that this new code will only be in operation five years from the 1st January next and does not, except in procedural matters, affect the estate of any person dying before 1st January, 1967, a further period of time might sensibly be allowed elapse before making those alterations which in the light of experience will require to be made in it. I am assured that the sections in the Bill which I had introduced with my colleagues will then receive careful consideration. As the Bill was not intended ever to be an exhaustive amendment of the law but merely to bring before the Houses of the Oireachtas some matters which I thought clearly did require amendment, and as I have since I introduced this with my colleagues been made aware by other members of my profession of various other matters arising out of the Succession Act of which I did not take cognisance, it would be a reasonable thing that these should be dealt with in a more comprehensive amendment which it would be proper for the Government of the day to introduce. On this basis I would move that the order for the Second Stage be discharged. I should like to say that I have been met reasonably and courteously by the Minister for Justice in relation to this matter.