Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the experts on Standing Orders here present. Amendment No. 195 amends section 67 on page 74. Currently, the Bill provides that an advance health care directive is legally binding only when it relates to the directive maker's refusal of treatment. Section 67(3)(b) states that a request for a specific treatment is not legally binding. This means that every decision against life, so to speak, no matter how unwise or unsound - that is to use the terms employed in section 66(2) - is granted greater legal protection than every decision in favour of life, even where the directive maker simply seeks to have food and water provided to them through artificial means. Advance health care directives are inapplicable in the case of the administration of basic care but, according to section 68, artificially-delivered nutrition and hydration do not constitute basic care.

Many Irish people very reasonably hold that the provision of food and water, regardless of how it is delivered, is part of basic care. No doubt at least some of those people would want their advance health care directives to reflect that very reasonable conviction on their part. While the decision in the 1996 ward of court case probably precludes basic care from being defined by the Bill as incorporating artificially-delivered nutrition and hydration, that is not really the point because it does not prevent the Oireachtas from treating advance health care directives requesting the provision of food and water as legally binding.The Bill as it stands clearly favours life ending wishes over life saving wishes. Denying citizens the right to make a health care directive requiring the provision of food and water, whether delivered artificially or naturally, undermines their right to life and freedom of conscience. This is not a constitutional claim as such - one might argue that it is a moral claim - but constitutionally there must be a question mark over the Bill on this point however speculative it is to argue. It seems odd that people are not supported by the legislation in seeking to vindicate their right to life by the provision artificially of food and hydration. I would not claim to be definitive but I argue that this is constitutionally questionable.

Some might argue that to provide an advance health care directive which mandates the provision of artificial food and hydration in a certain situation could put huge pressure on medical resources but I do not think we want to go down the road of medical resource arguments.