Mr. Lloyd Riley:

I thank the committee and the secretariat for the invitation to today's session and for the warm welcome in Dublin. I would like to use my opening statement to share with the committee three lessons I have learned while campaigning on this issue in the hope that they will help to inform its deliberations.

The first is the question of whether we should change the law on assisted dying. I do not think this should necessarily be seen as a question of whether we should create new rights for dying people.

The questions are as follows. Do we want to acknowledge and remove the barriers that are currently in place and prevent dying people from exercising control over how their lives end? Do we want to make end-of-life care fit for the 21st century? Do we want to unshackle dying people from a medical paternalism that has been imposed on them without their consent? In that sense this debate has much in common with other changes that societies around the world have grappled with in recent decades. These are changes that challenged the role of the State in decisions people want to make about their own lives. In Ireland, like in other countries, this has manifested itself in debates around abortion, marriage, contraception and divorce.

Second, it is an error to consider a blanket ban on assisted dying in the current situation as a satisfactory holding position, from which we can tread water and look at any suggestions for a new way forward with a disproportionate sense of fear. The most dangerous thing we can do in this debate is nothing because doing nothing will not stop dying people from wanting to exercise the choice over how their lives end. It does not eradicate demand for assisted dying. It simply forces people to take matters into their own hands, whether that be by travelling to a different country that respects their wishes or embarking on arguably an even more challenging journey to plan a violent death at home. Doing nothing sends a social message that there is a level of suffering that we are willing to accept as collateral damage for upholding a status quowhich, from the polls I have seen in Ireland, and I know is definitely the case in the UK, show the majority of people in this country do not want. The most extreme policy position that members are likely to hear today, and I know they have heard in previous sessions, is the idea that they, as legislators, should do nothing on this issue.

Finally, it is wrong to give equal weight to real harm and harm that is speculative. What I mean by that is it is imperative that the voices and real experiences of the people most affected by this issue are front and centre of the debate and are not drowned out by theoretical discussion. Dignity in Dying does all it can to make sure those voices are heard, the voices of Julie, whose husband was denied a peaceful death in Switzerland because his doctor was too scared to write the medical report he needed to get there; Barbara, whose 89-year-old father was found hanging in his garage; Susan, traumatised by her daughter’s death in a hospice when the clinicians said they had exhausted all their options to relieve her pain; Paul, who received a call at work to say his dying father had been found alone, having taken his own life; Anne, who, in her time of most acute grief, was confronted by a group of police officers banging on her door; and Emil, who cannot get the sound of his dying mum's screams out of his mind. The suffering of their loved ones was real. Their pain is still real and I know that because I have met them, sat and talked to them, and I have looked in their eyes and seen it.

The picture painted by those who oppose law change invariably hinges on what-ifs, hypotheticals and worse-case scenarios - "possibly", "could" or "might". I do not doubt that their concerns are well meaning or that we should not proceed with due caution. However, the truth is the potential for harm that they want to draw to the committee's attention is not borne out by the reality of how assisted dying works in practice. I believe the quality of this debate can be improved by acknowledging that this is about reducing excessive restrictions not expanding freedoms, that the current situation cannot be considered safe and that real suffering should carry more weight than suffering that is imagined.

As the committee will have heard in other sessions, nearly 30 jurisdictions around the world encompassing over 250 million people have acknowledged those things and gone on to change their laws. Those laws are safe, compassionate and popular and are often a catalyst for improving end-of-life care for everyone. There is a growing body of evidence to show that this is far preferable than the consequences of inaction, which props up policies that are dangerous, cruel, out of date and out of touch with the people members represent. I know that everyone in this room is united in trying to find the best way forward and provide the best possible care for dying people but I firmly believe that cannot be achieved without legal reform.