Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a couple of questions.

Obviously laws are developed based on moral principles or underpinnings within a particular society. I am looking at the principles of double effect. When one is trying to create law or regulate in a new area, the principles of double effect are when something that is intended to do good also causes harm, whether to people who are left behind, to society's sense of itself, or whatever that harm may be, but the initial intention is to reduce or alleviate suffering, or so on. Two morally opposing things are happening at once, where one is both doing harm and potentially reducing harm at the same time. In the development of law, does one negate the other in the end? Within law, does that make something morally neutral, if that makes sense? If the two things that are intended produce opposing effects for different cohorts, I wonder about how we begin to make laws and regulate from that perspective.

Coercion has come up a fair bit. I cannot help but think about all the other conditions, especially what IHREC says needs to be in place with regard to safeguards, including better access to palliative care and to mental health supports, as well as for housing and poverty. There are all these teams. There is an individual focus on individual coercion, whether relating to families or loved ones, but if an individual is culpable for potentially coercing or putting pressure on an individual, there is no conversation about how we hold the State culpable for its coercion by not providing adequate care. It feels that we should not only be focusing on that, but if we do not fix all the other conditions and then we regulate, are we saying that State coercion is happening by not introducing all the supports or choices that are needed? The person does not have the array of choices. That is still coercion, not on an individual basis but on a State basis. How do we put all the other conditions in place so that there is also a choice of assisted dying? If all the other things that feel like they are bigger to manage or to fix do not happen, then we still let other people down with that other option. It feels like it is a big conversation.

Physician-assisted has been mentioned a few times. I want to clarify that for people watching the meeting. Obviously, there are different levels of physician-assisted, based on the different models. Physician-assisted could mean providing medicine, where one is administering that medicine. IHREC's submission refers to physician-assisted a few times. What is its understanding of physician-assisted when it says that? Regarding the lack of regulation, there is a bigger conversation that is bigger than disability, which has been at the centre a lot today and I think it will be central in many ways. There is a much wider conversation about why people may want to die, which may not be recognised as a specific disability.

What happens if there is no regulation and then the only people able to access assisted dying are the able-bodied because they will continue to travel to states that will cater to people or we force people to travel before they are ready to actually die, because they know that when they get to a certain stage, they are going to need support to get on the plane and book the tickets. They might have a condition that is progressing and affecting their movement, causing a need for wheelchairs, and so on. We would interrupt the process by saying that because we are not going to regulate in this country, those people will have to decide to leave the country five years earlier than they would have liked to, because they know that with the condition their life is headed towards, they will not be able to travel alone. Not regulating is ableist in and of itself because of the other options that are available.