Professor John Mee:

In some ways, Deputy O'Callaghan is assuming that someone accused of aiding and abetting a murder did not make as bad a mistake as they did. I find what the LRC said very hard to justify. It was looking at the definition of an "accomplice", which the 1997 legislation says is a principal offender, meaning that an accomplice is as bad as a principal offender. The commission is saying that it is now dealing with civil law which does not have to agree with the criminal law. It is second guessing the criminal law saying that an accomplice might not be a very bad person and there might be a range of culpability. The LRC seems to be saying that someone might have hired a hitman, which is bad, but the person themselves only drove the car and were young so it is not as bad and, in such a situation, the inheritance is not going to taken from that person. The proper response is to say that it is murder if the criminal law says it is murder. It is the worst crime on our Statute Book. One is guilty of murder and that is it. The civil law cannot second guess it and say that it thinks that someone who is a murderer in the eyes of the criminal law is not too bad.

Deputy O'Callaghan was saying that accomplices are tried as principal offenders, which they are, and the LRC is saying such cases will be separated. These people who are found guilty as principal offenders because they aided and abetted will be totally excluded from the legislation unlike those who carried out the crime themselves. A gangland leader who hired others to kill someone could inherit, or in cases where someone hired a hitman, like the Nevin case, that person could inherit. It is a surprising aspect of the Bill but it is easily dealt with because it can just be deleted.

It was suggested, in the debates, that maybe there could be a discretion but the discretion should only apply if it is being applied to all people who are guilty of murder. There is no particular reason to single out some murderers for special treatment. Discretion should apply to everybody convicted or murder or only to people convicted of manslaughter. Does that answer the question?