The Law Reform Commission has stated that, under proposed changes to the law on inheritance, parents will no longer have a moral duty to provide for their children in their will.
We were joined by solicitor Richard Hammond and and Brendan Burgess, founder of askaboutmoney.com, who discussed what this may mean.
Richard said, "There's a clear distinction between moral duty and legal duty."
He explained that, under the current law, if a child is over 18 they don't have an automatic entitlement to financial provision from their parents, and this would continue to be the case if the current proposals were enacted.
According to Brendan, parents themselves often suffer financially in order to be able to provide for their adult children: "There are older people living on the breadline so that they can leave the house to their children."
"It shouldn't be up to the taxpayer to help people keep their inheritance together. We seem to have this idea in Ireland that the state should pay for everything. It's madness in my opinion and I think it should be changed."
