Wife and children killer Alan Hawe left more than €400,000 in will

Legal papers in relation to his will were only finalised in recent weeks.

They show that his estate had a gross value of €428,831 – but this reduces to €284,221 after his debts, including funeral expenses, were paid.

The Irish Independent understands funeral costs amounted to nearly €28,000.

The administration of the estate now “devolves” to Hawe’s father, Stephen Hawe, a farmer from Co Kilkenny.

Alan Hawe’s will was written in September 2006, a decade before his killing rampage.

It stipulated that in the event of his death, his wife would be the sole beneficiary of his assets provided she survived him by at least 30 days.

At the time the couple had two infant boys and in the event that both adults died within a month of each other, the children were to be transferred into the care of Clodagh’s mother, Mary Coll.

The estate would then be used for the “maintenance, welfare and education” of the children up to the age of 21.

The will did not make any instruction for what should happen if the entire family died, meaning that under the Succession Act, Hawe’s parents inherit the estate as his next of kin.

This situation has caused friction between the Coll and Hawe families.

After murdering Clodagh, Hawe transferred more than €2,000 from a joint account into one in his own name, meaning his relatives would be the sole financial beneficiaries. He then took his own life.

Irish law does not prevent a killer, or an unsuspecting relative of their choosing, from profiting as the result of a murder.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee has said she is “most anxious” to introduce legislative reform in this area which would stop perpetrators of homicide benefiting from their crime – but there is no timeline for when this might happen.

Mary Coll, along with Clodagh’s sister Jacqueline, has initiated personal injury proceedings against Stephen Hawe in his capacity as the legal representative of his son’s estate.

Ms Coll’s claim is understood to include damages for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Separately, Alan Hawe’s mother, Olive, has also initiated personal injury proceedings against the estate for trauma.

A solicitor for Hawe’s estate previously told the Irish Independent that diligent work has been done “to try and find resolution of issues between the families left behind”.

In the days after the quadruple murder-suicide the entire family were buried together near their home in Cavan.

Shortly afterwards, Clodagh’s relatives asked that Hawe’s coffin be removed from the shared burial place.

However, as Clodagh’s next of kin they had no right to have his body exhumed.

In May 2017, the Hawe family hired an undertaker to bring his remains to Glasnevin Cemetery for cremation.

An inquest into the deaths heard Hawe used an axe and two knives during the attack.

The Colls refuse to accept evidence that he suffered from a depression that escalated into psychosis.

They believe the murders were premediated.

A garda review of how the case was handled is ongoing.

Online Editors