Professor John Mee:

Part of the reason I think it is arbitrary is that the list of factors to govern the discretion are wide ranging and not relevant to the question of benefit. I mentioned earlier that, if I was a member of Advocates for Victims of Homicide, AdVIC, I would ask whether a killer is benefitting from the crime. Consider a situation whereby a killer kills somebody from whom they were liable to become divorced and thereby stood to lose many of their assets. When they murder the person, that divorce does not happen. Those aspects of the Bill which say the amount that each contributed to the acquisition of the property and what they contributed to their family intend to address such a situation. It seems to be a gesture towards an idea.

There was a perception in the Cawley case that all this money had been brought into the family and given to Eamon Lillis and now he is getting away with it. In the normal situation, that is just part of the history of the matter. He inherited ownership and those things cannot be taken from him but he is also escaping getting divorced. This will take a lot of thought and cannot just be written into this Bill.

In the case of a murder victim, or other unusual cases where it might help the children, would it be appropriate for the estate to be able to make a claim under divorce, civil partnership or cohabitation legislation? I do not see anything in this Bill that would help the situation in which the Hawe family find themselves. It is a different situation to one in which a person empties another's bank account and, after a divorce, that money is returned.

This is specifically in the New Zealand legislation. The situation is fixed in New Zealand so that each partner more or less gets half the joint assets of the couple. In Ireland, the money that one gets depends on how much one needs to live - though that does not apply where one is dead and does not need money to live. It is not easy to do but would be possible if it was thought about carefully.

To get the Bill through, it would be possible to get rid of the discretion and make half the standard settlement. Something would have to be inserted to deal with section 30, which would be complicated. If I was the Minister, I would tell the Hawe family that we have to look into it and see what we can do to help.

One should not legislate for whatever was the latest terrible thing that happened, as Deputy Clare Daly said. Such legislation might address the concerns of one set of victims but the next set will have a different set of concerns and these Bills do not get amended. I am not sure that is a good idea because I do not know how it would be controlled but it should be looked into and thought about. It certainly would be something that other countries have not done and, as to whether it would work, I do not know. It is an area of inquiry the Legislature could go down.

I suggest this Bill should be like the one in New Zealand. It should be a stand-alone Bill that is quite detailed, deals with these issues and says that one cannot benefit from pensions in these cases. It provides for 50:50 on the distribution of assets and includes discretion in cases of manslaughter. There is a shape that a Bill should take which this does not have yet. That is what I would do.