Dr. Siobh?n N? Bhriain:

I did have a look to see if there was any evidence or research available on the impact of assisted dying. It is not there long enough for us to understand it in the same way as suicide. Certainly, there is no intention to conflate the issue of assisted dying and suicide, just to be clear about that. That is very fair point.

On the issue of will and preference and supporting people to make healthcare decisions, when we talk about the refusal of life-sustaining treatment, that does mean that people can say, "I am now at a stage where I no longer want treatment for A, B, C, D or E." If I may refer to my experience as a clinician, most of my time has been spent working with older people, and I have worked with many families at end of life, and that is something that takes a long conversation with families. It is certainly not one conversation with a patient or a family. The intention is not that anybody would suffer but, rather, that people would not be subjected to treatments that may cause them to suffer. I feel very strongly as a clinician that these are conversations we all need to be able to have with our patients and that they are iterative conversations that take place over time.