Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests very much for their contributions today. If it is okay with the two speakers, I will ask all my questions first and then hand over to them if they want to take note of them. Professor Boer mentioned in his submission that in some neighbourhoods, assisted deaths account for 15% to 20% of all deaths. My first question is about whether there is something that defines them in terms of their characteristics or demographics as particular neighbourhoods. Perhaps Professor Boer could speak to what he means by "neighbourhoods" in terms of whether they are particular minority groups, geographics or whatever that may be.

My second question concerns something I have been grappling with somewhat throughout the course of this whole committee, which is that differentiation of how we define or think about pain. I listened to Professor Boer's concerns about when the law begins to expand out to allow for all different types of pain and language. It brings me back again to that core question of trying myself to ethically grapple with how to understand pain and suffering or agony and anguish. Does Professor Boer have any further insights or comments on how we as either legislators or citizens in general understand the difference between different types of pain, whether those are bodily sensations that are very obvious to point at such as a physical wound or pain caused by cancer and stuff like that, and then the difference between biological, psychological or emotional pain and how they arise in the body as different bodily sensations and are defined as mental acts of pain versus physical acts of pain? That is something I have been really grappling with but it ends up then feeding into what the law may look like. How do we create a hierarchy of what pain and suffering is to be considered when we look at how one dies?

Professor Boer mentioned, and I understand the criticisms he has, about how he is not completely against dying with dignity in particular cases. Is there a jurisdiction where he feels they are more closely aligned with what he sees as a model of assisted dying?

I have a couple of questions for Mr. Luley. He mentioned his sister Dignitas organisation in Germany. Do the organisations in Switzerland and Germany operate under different types of regimes? What are the differences between the two regimes, if any? Is there a preferred legal model operating in either one? With regard to the rights being inferred by the European Court of Human Rights, to what principles is Mr. Luley referring? What human rights are actually being inferred in respect of his submission?

The final question for Mr. Luley is about how in his larger submission, he mentioned working with lawmakers and handing in law-making proposals. Are the proposals he was engaged with in a law-making process handled in such a way that when that opportunity comes up, the law in Switzerland currently matches the proposals he is currently making? Is Switzerland also making proposals to expand the regime that exists there or is the current law in line with what Dignitas advocates for at a legal level?