Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We have no apologies as yet.

Parliamentary privilege is considered to apply to the utterances of members participating online in committee meetings when their participation is from within the parliamentary precincts. There can be no assurances in respect of participation online from outside the parliamentary precincts, and members should be mindful of this when contributing. This committee discusses dying, including suicide. Support information can be found on the committee's web page.

Our European agenda item today is engagement on the topic of assisted dying in Europe. We welcome Professor Theo Boer, professor of healthcare ethics, Protestant Theological University, who was previously a member of a regional review committee on euthanasia, and Mr. Ludwig Minelli and Mr. Silvan Luley, representatives from Dignitas, Switzerland, to the meeting.

We are grateful to them for sharing their knowledge with the committee.

The format for this meeting is that members will ask questions after the witnesses have given their opening statements. A member can ask an individual witness a question or address a question to all the witnesses more generally. I ask the witnesses to please keep their opening statements to the agreed five minutes. I invite Professor Boer to give his opening statement and I again thank him most sincerely for being here.