Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Those last comments by Dr. Twomey are significant. What he said about conscientious objection is also significant and we should revisit the issue of allowing people who have a professional or moral objection or whatever, especially where the State is paying for, providing or permitting. It is important people are able to disengage completely, rather than having to transfer for care, but that is a discussion for another day.

Listening to what my friend and colleague, Deputy Gino Kenny, had to say, I was struck by something. I admired the late Leonard Cohen very much. In 2016, he said he was ready to die and he hoped it would not be too uncomfortable. I deeply believe that if we can address people's fears and concerns about dying - not only pain or the fear of pain which Dr. Twomey emphasised is the even stronger issue - we can address this issue in a way that does not require an assisted suicide or euthanasia regime and therefore enables us to avoid all the risks we have talked about, such as people feeling they are a burden, people with mental health issues getting caught up in the trap and all the other situations.

In that context, I will turn to Dr. Ní Bhriain briefly with a sensitive question. We all know that suicide should never be encouraged. It has been described as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. We know it happens for various reasons. One of the things our work on this committee has brought out for me is that there are two ways in which the suicide question intersects with the euthanasia or assisted suicide issue. One is the question, reflecting on what Dr. Anne Doherty and others had to say, of whether, no matter how it is tried, people with mental health challenges of one kind or another will get caught up in the net, even if it was only legislated for in cases of terminal illness.

The second issue is whether the very existence of assisted suicide as a possibility causes people intergenerationally other otherwise to set their lives at a lesser value. I ask my question of Dr. Ní Bhriain delicately and with caution. Is assisted suicide not a branch of the suicide question, in the sense that whenever suicide takes place, there is a reason for it?

The reason may relate to mental illness, depression, the death of a loved one, some crisis in the person's life, or because the person is approaching physical illness or death, etc. Is it possible to separate these? I thought the representatives were doing so. I am not asking them inquisitorially, but I am seeking to understand. Is it not necessary for us to consider the assisted suicide question as a branch of the suicide question? It will always be a live issue. It may be the case that its availability for some categories of people will cause others to set their lives at a lesser value.