I am glad the Minister is prepared to accept the motion but we hope there will not be as much delay now as there has been since he first promised to consider such a Bill three years ago, or perhaps longer. During those three years, there is no doubt there have been several inofficious wills and society is now maintaining widows and children of people who, if they had lived, would have been under a moral and statutory obligation to maintain those people. As long as we permit these people to make wills depriving widows and children of all property and all support, we are allowing people to do after death what we forbid them to do while living.
We compel a living person to maintain his wife and children. If he fails to maintain his wife and children, he will be prosecuted by the State for wife and child neglect and under the criminal code, will be compelled to pay a sum, which is all too small unfortunately, but a certain statutory amount week after week. Even apart from the criminal code, such a person can be sued by a wife and compelled to contribute out of his own income for the maintenance of the wife and her children, if the children are left in her guardianship. However, we have permitted a person by will to remove all that responsibility from his own shoulders and on to the shoulders of the State and local authorities and we do not think that is a situation which should be considered lightly or should be allowed to continue unduly long.
We are also aware that there are many will disputes in Irish courts which would not come there if we introduced a comprehensive Bill dealing with the rights of succession to property. Particularly from rural Ireland, there is plenty of speculative litigation relating to wills, and executors of wills or beneficiaries under wills, not infrequently, in order to avoid the unpleasantness and publicity of court proceedings, succumb to the pressures of people who have perhaps very questionable claims. I believe that of all the will disputes, only a small percentage of them find their way into an actual court hearing.
These considerations indicate the necessity of ensuring that there is no further delay about introducing a proper Bill to tidy up the law and to see to it that we do not allow people by their wills to fly in the face of the social obligations which are now accepted by our modern society, and so long as we permit the present unsatisfactory position to continue, that is what will happen.
I do not wish to record too many particular instances but I am aware of one case where a husband and wife were separated, where under the separation agreement the husband was obliged to contribute to the support of his separated wife, and in this case I think there can be no doubt that the husband was the party to blame for the unhappy differences. In that case, the husband made a will and died. That terminated his obligations towards his wife and the wife is now relaying as her sole source of income on what she is getting in home assistance.
That lady came from a very comfortable family. She married a wealthy husband who had ample property and who, no matter what unhappy differences might have arisen between them, was surely under some kind of obligation.He having taken unto himself a wife was not entitled to say: "On my death, I will pass my money to my mistress and leave my wife on the shoulders of society." That happened.I am also aware of another case in which the parties are still living but there is a serious possibility that a similar unsatisfactory situation might arise if the husband, who has obligations as long as he lives, were to go to his eternal reward before his wife.