Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank everybody for their attendance. I apologise as these are challenging times for the Department of Justice and Equality so I will have to pop out but I will come back in. I mean no disrespect to the witnesses. I will follow the proceedings in the Official Report if I am not able to remain for all the responses.

I found all of the presentations incredibly useful. I acknowledge the role of Deputy Jonathan O'Brien, who is not a committee member any more, who strongly pushed that this would be a project that the committee would take on board. The contributions of the witnesses have strengthened and validated the reasons why we need to do this. The case of Marie Fleming in particular touched people the length and breadth of the country. From a personal point of view the right to die at a time or in a manner of one's own choosing is something I found to be an incredibly compelling argument. The challenge for us is to balance that with any unintended consequences from legislation. That is one of the issues I wish to explore. One argument against assisted dying is that if we legislate, then the right to die could turn into an obligation to die in particular in this neoliberal climate where we do not always take the best care of people and when we talk about cost effectiveness when we should be talking about human beings and their right to live, and die, with dignity.

The issue is that people might feel a pressure to choose to die. The Irish Association for Palliative Care has stated it is a cultural acceptance whereby people feel they are a burden on a family or their care is costing too much or health insurance costs too much. How could we avoid that coming to pass? What rules could we put in place? What kind of system would be best to overcome that unintended consequence? Another issue is the objections of some of the disability groups globally arguing that it devalues the lives of people who have disabilities. How do other jurisdictions deal with that issue? Perhaps it is something people cannot address.

Dr. McQuillan referred to the safeguards in other jurisdiction as not being sufficient. In terms of elder abuse, is it not the case that people are helped to die against their will at present, when we do not have legislation to allow people to die with dignity? The problem is not really whether we legislate or not because that is poor behaviour and should never be tolerated but it is different to a rational adult making a decision about his or her own future and having the right to die. I do not know whether I explained that well. The problem is not legislation. I do not think there is any argument against legislation. The arguments are overwhelming as to why somebody should be allowed to decide if he or she wants to die. The only problem is an unintended consequence. I think we could overcome that.