In this case I do not mind how long the Seanad takes, as there is no hurry about the Bill. I have delayed it quite a long time myself. 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. It is as well to say this at the outset so as to forestall suggestions which would be appropriate to a measure of a different kind but which are out of place in connection with the present Bill.
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, if the 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 eight times 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 £4,000. 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 was a good deal of discussion in the other House as to what the statutory legacy should be and I was asked to take into consideration not alone the fall in the value of money that has taken place since 1890 but also the fact that the sum of £500 was inadequate even at that time and represented a much less ample provision than an intestate would have wished to make for his widow before he would have wished his parents or brothers and sisters to benefit. It is clear that very different views may be taken as to what provision should be made for the widow where there is no issue surviving, but I was impressed by the argument that the widow should be provided with a competence which would be sufficient to maintain her for the rest of her life in modest comfort where the estate was large enough to permit of this. I therefore agreed that the statutory legacy should be fixed at the sum of £4,000 instead of £2,000, as I had originally intended.
There is one provision in the Bill which calls for a word of explanation and that is the provision contained in Section 7, which relates to the method of valuing real estate for the purposes of the Bill. Under the law as it stands, the value of the real estate (including registered land), 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 is to produce the most anomalous results. Let me give an illustration. Suppose that two persons die intestate, one possessed of a farm of registered land with a rateable valuation of £25 and the other possessed of nothing but £500 in the bank, the widow takes the entire estate in each case but the saleable value of the farm of registered land might be worth as much as £1,500 or £2,000. The anomaly is no less striking in the case of two farms of registered land the artificial valuation of which is slightly below £500 in one case and slightly above it in the other since the market value of both farms is very much in excess of the artificial valuation. In the first case the widow takes the entire farm, but in the second she gets no more than a charge for £500 on the farm and half the balance of its market value. The Bill proposes to get rid of these anomalies by providing that in future real estate is to be taken at its market or saleable value, which is what Section 7 means.
It remains for me to say that Section 1 of the Bill provides that the Act shall come into operation on the 1st June next. This is to allow persons concerned an opportunity of making their wills if they do not wish their property to be dealt with in accordance with the terms of the new legislation. We thought it only right we should give due notice.