Ms Sin?ad Gibney:

To clarify, my basis for saying I believe we can legislate for it is because I believe it has been successfully legislated for in other jurisdictions and this is the correct forum to deliberate on how it may be introduced in this particular jurisdiction. This is what I mean when I say I think it can be legislated for, with all of the human rights and equality concerns that we have raised. I am not not recommending a change. What I am trying to say, and what I was putting out at the very start of our contribution, is that we are a 15-member commission with a mandate to protect and promote human rights and equality in Ireland and to promote a culture of respect for human rights, equality and intercultural understanding in the State. As we can imagine, we deal with a large range of issues on any given day, week, month or year. We deal with the most pressing issues we have to deal with in the best way that we can as a functioning commission with 15 commission members and 90 staff.

What we have done to date on the topic of dying with dignity is to respond in our submission to the Private Members' Bill that has come through the Dáil and we are back here today to speak on that submission. We have done some rapid legal analysis on what has happened since then. As a commission we may come to a point where we recommend a change in law but our primary focus is to assist the committee members as law makers. We do not necessarily come out and say we think a law should be introduced in certain areas. We deal with the existing legislative framework we have. We may come out and say the law should be changed or we may choose to continue to raise human rights and equality concerns and show the committee our analysis as it relates to its deliberations. I do not rule out that we might recommend the introduction of such legislation. What I am trying to explain is that as a commission we operate on what we can do across a very broad range of issues and this is as far as we have gone on this particular one.