Familicide: Ireland playing catch-up on the inheritance law loophole

Broadcaster Claire Byrne (centre) with Jacqueline Connolly and Mary Coll, sister and mother of murder victim Clodagh Hawe

It won’t be much longer before the changes to the Succession Act 1965 that will stop a killer or their heirs from retaining or inheriting any part of the estate of the spouse (or spouse and children) they unlawfully killed are finally put before the Oireachtas.

The Law Reform Commission first recommended similar changes back in 2014. Four years later, in October 2018, the Minister for Justice put such a private members bill, ...