Dr. Feargal Twomey:

Conscientious objection is important to many healthcare professionals. The Deputy will have heard in the sittings thus far evidence from Australia and New Zealand where conscientious objection to participating in anything to do with assisted dying is really lock tight. Essentially, healthcare professionals and doctors and nurses in Australia and New Zealand elect to participate. In essence, if they do not wish to participate, people are able to contact their ministry for health to be put in touch with a doctor or practitioner who would be interested in providing the service as it is set out in their legislation. Conscientious objection came under the spotlight in Ireland following the repeal of the eighth amendment. Conscientious objection in that is subject to a conventional compromise that has been put in place, partly to protect those who have conscientious objection but also partly to protect those looking for the service. There is an obligation to make a referral to somebody who might provide the service even though another person is not willing to provide it. From listening to the deliberations of members of the committee and their witnesses in previous sittings, there seems to be a fondness for an Oregon-based model or an Australia-New Zealand model, the full impact of which we do not know yet because it is so new.

However, one of the things said in this regard and said by Professor Huxtable, whose evidence really impressed me, was that having true conscientious objection means there is not a burden on a healthcare professional to provide something he or she is not comfortable with but it is open to those who are willing to do so to provide the service. That clarity is helpful in terms of healthcare well-being and possibly in terms of patients, members of the public, who wish to avail of a particular service, if legalised.