Mr. Tom Curran:

First, I would like to mention palliative care. To me, it is probably one of the best disciplines in medicine that exists. It is the only discipline as far as I know in medicine that accepts a person is going to die. Unfortunately, we do not put enough effort into palliative care in Ireland. I am part of the All Ireland Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care and I work a lot within palliative care. I fully accept the need for it and the fact that it is far from ideal. Palliative care is for people who want to eke out every second of life. However, there are people who want to have palliative care but still want to have a choice at the end of their life. Palliative care is wonderful. Marie had palliative care for many years and there is no doubt that it made her life far better than it would have been if she did not have access to it. I have, however, come across hundreds of people who, like Marie, had a particular concept.

They have the same idea that at a particular point, their lives are not worth living. Anybody should have the right to say that. It is only the individual who can make that decision. While one can say a toothache is very difficult, it is only the individual who can decide, not what he or she is capable of, but what he or she is prepared to tolerate. What right have we to say to them that they should continue to live in that discomfort and pain past the point where they find it unacceptable?

Dr. McQuillan referred to doctors and the medical side. I agree completely that it should not be part of health care. It should be taken away from doctors. Currently, doctors have exclusive access to providing a peaceful death. I did not say that was right or that I agreed with it. In fact, I said I thought it was wrong. In Switzerland, lay people are involved in providing peaceful deaths. Dignitas is run by two barristers who are not medical people. Rather, they get medical people to provide the prescriptions. On the idea of safeguards, we can certainly point to places like Holland where the position is certainly not ideal. Certainly, I have no interest in bringing in a regime like the one that exists in Holland into Ireland. It is far too liberal. I am not saying I am not liberal in my thoughts, but as far as assisted dying and voluntary euthanasia are concerned, Holland and Belgium go way beyond what I would like to see. It is very likely with their regimes that it will be very difficult to control access to it.

In places like Oregon it is of course the case that more people are availing of it. If one starts from a position where it does not exist, there will be a phenomenal increase. One thing that is very clear and that people opposed to assisted dying never say is that the death rate has never gone up. The same number of people are dying. What is different is that people are not suffering. People may be dying a bit earlier than they would have otherwise, but they are not suffering when they are dying. The same number of people are dying and the same people are dying but they are just dying in a different way and when they decide to. The same applies in Canada. One of the advantages of being able to look at other places and to find out what is wrong with them is that we are not pioneering this. We will not be the first to do it if we ever get around to doing it. We can learn from the mistakes that other people have made. It is not even necessarily that there are mistakes, but it may be that we do not agree with the way they do it. Oregon is one of the best examples.

Canada has just recently introduced assisted dying. Canada is regarded around the world as one of the safest countries as far as legislation is concerned. In fact, the Canadian courts ruled that Canada's assisted dying law was unconstitutional. If that decision had been made before Marie and I went to court, we would have had a different outcome in the High Court here. That would have been the example for us because the Canadian constitution is very similar to ours in respect of individual rights. Our courts would have gone along with the idea. In fact, the Canadian courts were going through the same process when Marie went to court, but Marie did not have the time to wait around, as is obvious now that it is coming up to four years since she died. Safeguards can be put in place. Of course, no system is going to be foolproof. Abuse goes on all the time. Dr. McQuillan referred to the abuse of the elderly. That is against the law but it does not stop it from happening. There will be people who take advantage of others. However, it should not mean we deny access to a civil right to everyone else.