Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have one or two follow-up questions for a additional information. In relation to mental illness and mental pain and suffering, am I right in saying that, from a medical law perspective, suffering is not just physical pain? Are they seen as equal or is there still some sort of disparity, whether it be written within law or a cultural position, that somehow one is more legitimate than the other? I believe this needs to be teased out, potentially, if it is not in the law. They need to be at par in some sense. There is probably some assumption that, with mental anguish or with depression that has been treatment resistant for many years - all that type of stuff - somehow there is something about that person that could actually just not be that thing, that they could just not be in mental anguish or that they could actually fix that psychological pain, and that somehow we are not really giving legitimacy to some of that. I wonder where they stand within the law in terms of suffering or if they do at all within policy?

If we are to look at other aspects, such as who accesses it and who the criteria encompasses if this is the way assisted dying is to go, would we have to insert a right to die within the Constitution to try to pull that out further? Can all of those other questions be done within regulation and without touching the Constitution? Obviously, it is harder with a referendum and it might be easier if we could just regulate, but I am worried in this regard.

Do we verge into that most conservative analysis of regulation and legislation rather than, if it was in the Constitution as a right to die, it being much more open to encompassing all those other conditions and the different times a person may be from death, be it six months or ten years?

My other point is to do with the right of free movement and liberty. Let us consider the Bernadette Forde and Gail O'Rorke case where gardaí intercepted them and stopped them leaving the country. Were the gardaí acting within the law and the Constitution at the time in stopping them from leaving to go to another country to avail of something that was legal there? I think of other things, not to compare them but as a contrast, such as if I go to Amsterdam for a week of cannabis use or to Colorado to take psilocybin or to a place where the sex trade is completely legal. Why were these people intercepted if they were leaving the country to avail of something that is legal in another country? Should that have happened at all?