Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I compliment both witnesses on their thoughtful presentations. Professor Binchy referred repeatedly to a 500-yard walk or a five-minute walk that would allow us to witness current medical practice, which is informed by the Irish Medical Council guidelines. As I understand those guidelines, there is a clear and bald reference therein to suicide as grounds for a termination as a consequence of the ruling in the X case. Is Professor Binchy therefore implicitly suggesting that the status quo that is informed by those guidelines should be left to operate without any direction from the Legislature as to how medical practitioners should interpret that bald provision in the guidelines?

Will our two eminent guests give us the benefit of their reflections on the State papers recently released under the 30-year rule which include the advice from successive Attorneys General to the Governments of the early 1980s in respect of the referendum which inserted Article 40.3.3° into the Constitution? I refer in particular to the predictions that apparently were made at the time and which subsequently came to pass as to the consequences of that amendment.