Mr. Peter Kearns:

I would point to Mr. Dolan’s comments on legislation and policy. We should take the chance to examine policy. In areas of the US, for example, they provided access to suicide prevention for disabled people.

I refer to there being a strong suicide prevention programme run and informed by disabled people's organisations. In that situation, if people did consider assisted suicide, they would be directed towards a State-funded programme with disabled people at the forefront of suicide prevention supports. That is a policy that could maybe work with assisted suicides. That concerns the situation at the moment, however. As has been pointed out, a lot of policy has not come about with legislation. If there is assisted suicide legislation, then, we would like to see a strong emphasis on suicide prevention, an approach which would be run and resourced in conjunction with disabled people and organisations.