Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Within the next year, my Department will take on responsibility for community welfare officers, FÁS, redundancy and insolvency payments, to mention but a few. There is on onerous burden on the staff of my Department. My colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, would have to allocate the additional resources that would arise from the implementation of the proposed scheme. To put it mildly, in the context of the comprehensive expenditure review, of which Senator Barrett is more aware than the rest of us, that would take a great deal of thought and argument with people in Deputy Howlin's Department and the Department of Finance.

I regret to inform the House that, in view the reservations I have expressed concerning the scheme of registration of wills as proposed in the Bill, I am unable to support the measure. The motion contains very good ideas but I cannot support the Bill at this point. However, it does raise critical issues that need to be addressed.