Michael Harty (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the committee I thank Commissioner Andriukaitis for his attendance today and for covering a range of topics. We could spend hours speaking about them.

The Commissioner spoke about healthy aging. End of life issues are very significant, not only in Ireland but across Europe. Discussion is centring on advance directives and how people want to be managed in their later years because medical technology has moved on to such an extent that people can be over-treated and almost heroic efforts can be made to keep them alive. We need to start conversations about how we address end-of-life issues and how we deal with them in the health sector but also in a social context. Does the Commissioner have a view on that?