Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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369. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if his Department has made a decision on the recommendation issued by the Law Society in January 2023 to amend or remove the requirement for family home declarations and to replace them with a statement of truth; the status of this review; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [68621/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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In December 2023, an Expert Group was established under Housing for All to review conveyancing and probate processes in Ireland from a user perspective, and recommend changes, implementable quickly and easily, to reduce costs and delays for home-purchasers.

The Group produced a final report and recommendations in June 2024 which includes a recommendation to enable the introduction of electronic/digital signatures for ‘statements of truth’ as part of conveyancing transactions by amending the Statutory Declarations Act 1938, and a recommendation to remove the requirement for wet ink signatures for the registration of real estate by way of amendment to the Registration of Title Act 1964.

Following publication of the report, Government approved the establishment of an Implementation Group tasked with beginning the implementation of short-term recommendations, as well as developing a detailed programme to implement the full set of recommendations. Independently chaired, it comprises of key stakeholders drawn from relevant profession and industry representative bodies, along with government departments and agencies, including officials from my own department. The group produced a progress report in June 2025 which was published on gov.ie here: www.gov.ie/en/department-of-housing-local-government-and-heritage/publications/housing-for-all-expert-group-on-conveyancing-and-probate-final-report-and-recommendations/.

As outlined in that report, the group agreed to prioritise the enabling of the use of Statements of Truth where possible in the conveyancing process and the work to progress this is now being taken forward by my department.

Implementing these recommendations will require legislation as well as the roll out of a digital infrastructure. My department is prioritising the development of the necessary legislative provisions so that the required legal framework is available when the digital infrastructure necessary to operationalise these solutions becomes available.

The facilitation of digital signatures will allow conveyancing transactions to proceed more quickly, and it is anticipated that this intervention will have the effect of removing a key stumbling block to eConveyancing.