Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Apologies have been received from Senators Hoey, Seery Kearney and O'Loughlin.

Parliamentary privilege is considered to apply to the utterances of members participating online in a committee meeting when their participation is from within the parliamentary precincts. There can be no assurances in relation to participation online from outside the parliamentary precincts and members should be mindful of this when contributing. This committee discusses dying, including suicide. Support information can be found on the committee's web page.

Our agenda item today is engagement on the topic of assisted dying and the ethics of autonomy. We welcome Professor William Binchy BL, legal adviser to the Pro-Life Campaign, Mr. Lloyd Riley, director of policy and research at Dignity in Dying and Mr. Andrew Copson, chief executive of Humanists UK, which incorporates Northern Ireland Humanists, who is joining us online. We are very grateful to them all for appearing to share their knowledge with the committee. The format for this meeting is members will ask questions after the witnesses make their opening statements. A member may ask an individual witness a question or address it to all the witnesses. Please do not think I am horrible about this, but I have to try to keep to time. Each witness's opening statement is an agreed five minutes and each committee member has seven minutes for the opening slot, which includes the witnesses' time for a response, so we have to keep it lively. It is good for all of us to be kept on our toes.

I invite Professor Binchy to make his opening statement.