Alex White (Dublin South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The principles that apply which we went through are the same as those that apply generally in medical negligence cases.

As regards the care required to be taken in the clinical environment, as long as that is taken and the generally accepted standards of the profession are applied by a doctor in a given instance, as long as he or she applies in good faith the test set down in the legislation, as long as he or she does what is expected of him or her by law and upholds the professional practice guidelines of his or her own profession, as set out in the Dunne principles a number of years ago in the Holles Street case which is well known to the medical profession, there are no absolutes.

Deputy Róisín Shortall has asked how can we be certain. To be absolutely honest, the only answer is that we cannot be absolutely certain. No sunset clause or review will give certainty.

As regards the notion of doing our best, I was not suggesting thais. It was being characterised as doing one's best, while leaving open the question as to whether that was good enough. The fact is that is all any of us can do, on the basis of the advice we have available and in the context of the Constitution, the X case and the expert group that went through the judgment. This legislation reflects to a very considerable degree what the expert group stated. As legislators, we set down a test in good faith, to coin a phrase, and calibrated that test. We maintain at the forefront of our minds at all times the equal right to life. I ask Deputy Róisín Shortall if there is another way. Ffrankly, I do not understand how a sunset clause could allay people's concerns.