I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. This Bill is concerned with a single type of intestacy and with no other type of case, namely, the case of a man who dies leaving a widow but no children. It is not a Bill to deal with the law of intestate succession generally. Nor does it aim at a reform of the law of property, which some people think is overdue.
The Bill differs from the Bill that was introduced in 1951, chiefly, in two respects. Under the previous Bill the widow was to take the whole of the intestate's personal estate. Thus, ifthe deceased's estate consisted solely of a farm of registered land (which devolves as personal estate) the widow would take the entire estate. This, we believe, would be inconsistent with the wishes of intestates generally in this country and we have, therefore, proceeded on a different principle. Secondly, the previous Bill would have given the widow a life interest in the whole of the real estate but no other interest therein. This would put the widow in a worse position than she is in at present in the case of a small estate of real property as it would deprive her of the statutory legacy and a lump sum equivalent to half the value of the residue which would be a much more valuable interest in such a case. Opinion is indeed unanimous that life interests in small estates are most undesirable. We consider, therefore, that it would be a retrograde step to make such a change in the law.
The Bill proposes to make better provision for the childless widows of intestates in three ways. In the first place it proposes to increase four-fold the statutory legacy payable to such widows under the existing law, that is to say, to increase the statutory legacy from the sum of £500 to the sum of £2,000. Secondly, it provides that in the case of a partial intestacy the provisions of the Bill will apply to the intestate part. As the law stands the widow has no right to the statutory legacy in the case of a partial intestacy. And, finally, it provides that any property which, for want of an heir or next-of-kin, would pass to the State under the existing law shall in future belong to the widow absolutely and exclusively.
There has been a widespread feeling which is shared by the Government that the present law of intestate succession as it affects the case of the widow of a person who dies without children is not in accord with what such a person would have wished to have done with his property. Nor is it in accord with what is done by the average testator in making a will. On the other hand there is no evidence that public opinion is prepared for sweeping changes or would welcome any radical departure from theprinciple upon which the property of such a person has been distributed on his death for the past 60 years. Indeed there is some reason to suppose that any sweeping changes which ran counter to accustomed ways of thinking would be strongly resented. Accordingly it is proposed within the existing framework of the law to increase the statutory legacy fourfold so as to bring it into line with the present value of money and to remedy those defects in the law as a result of which the widow is deprived of some of her inheritance for the benefit of the State where there is no heir or next-of-kin and loses the statutory legacy in the case of a partial intestacy.
There is one provision in the present Bill that must, I think, be reconsidered and that is the provision which relates to the valuation of real estate. Under the Bill as it stands the value of the real estate for the purpose of determining the widow's rights falls to be calculated in an artificial manner upon the basis of 20 times the rateable valuation. The effect of this artificial manner of valuing real estate under present-day conditions when the price of land is high might be to produce anomalous results and to make more ample provision for the widow of an intestate than it is thought reasonable to make.
Let me give an illustration. Suppose two persons were to die intestate, one possessed of a farm of registered land with a rateable valuation of £100, and the other possessed of nothing but £2,000 in the bank, the widow would take the entire estate in each case, but the saleable value of the farm of registered land might be worth as much as £4,000 or £5,000. The anomaly would be even greater in the case of two farms of registered land the artificial value of which was slightly below £2,000 in one case and slightly above it in the other, although the saleable value of both farms was much in excess of the artificial valuation. In the first case, the widow would take the entire farm, but in the second she would get no more than a statutory legacy for £2,000 and half the balance of the market value. For this reasonwe have come to the conclusion that real estate should be valued on the basis of its market value and I propose, on the Committee Stage, to ask the Dáil to amend the Bill accordingly. Subject to this amendment I think the Bill is a good one and I ask the House to give it a second reading.