Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh ár n-aíonna. I thank Mr. Kearns and Mr. Dolan for being with us here today and for their very thought-provoking presentations. It would be remiss of me not to welcome Mr. Dolan as a former Seanad colleague as well. I am sure both witnesses know the inside of these Houses very well but, having served with Mr. Dolan, I know he certainly knows it very well indeed.

I also thank him for focusing us on the positive in a very determined way and without denying for a minute that different people can have different views. The positive, however, concerns the major challenges that face persons with disabilities and the major distance society has to go in order to address their needs and to support people in the way they are entitled to be. I am not exaggerating too much if I draw a parallel between the witnesses and the palliative care experts who came before the committee. The latter sought to take the focus off the question of whether assisted dying should be allowed but rather asked whether we can talk about a positive campaign about helping people to live well. Indeed, palliative care is about helping people to live well until they die. Today's presentations have in common the quotation from Victor Hugo Mr. Dolan finished with about helping people to live and, dare I say it, to live well.

It seems to me that persons with disabilities and their organisations have been very prominent in this debate internationally. Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh was before the committee in recent weeks, but I am also thinking of the British Parliament, where some very impressive voices expressed concern from the perspective of their role within organisations representing people with disabilities, as did the Glasgow Disability Alliance. Something more is going on here. I will put this to our guests: it does not seem to be just about not having disability as a grounds. Mr. Dolan brought it out very clearly when he mentioned that in jurisdictions where this has been legislated for, disabled people frequently speak about feeling hopeless and having nothing to live for. Is this about the sense that an increasingly uncaring state would or could take advantage of the fact that there might be a category of people whose lives can be taken legally? We may very well be presented with the "What ifs", for example, "What if we combine it with a prognosis of terminal illness?". However, as we heard from one psychiatrist, it is very difficult to separate out categories of people because people get caught in the net. Those with mental illness who happen to have a terminal illness are then in a particular zone where, depending on the attitude of society, they might or might not have the will to continue. Will the witnesses speak to the question of whether they think this goes beyond the bare question of whether assisted dying or assisted suicide should be allowed for persons with disabilities?