Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I have a heavy cold so I probably asked the question very badly. My question was addressed to Professor McAuliffe. She predicted that there would be a very low number of individuals who would need this type of treatment in the cases of suicidality. We heard at similar hearings here in January that prediction accuracy for suicide is about 3%. Given that the legislation identifies that objective medical markers will not be available to the decision makers but that subjective analysis will be available and the fact that in every other jurisdiction where similar legislation has come through, the experience has been quite different and there has been a very large increase in the number of people accessing this service with similar types of symptoms, it is very difficult to make that prediction that the numbers will be very low. Professor McAuliffe said earlier that the legislation is not really a change in the status quo. Dr. Holohan mentioned this morning that this legislation was without precedent in that it meant that a third party would be damaged or would lose their life as a result of the treatment for suicidality.