Ms Caroline Simons:

Because it has not been asked before I would first like to respond to Deputy Flanagan's question on the right to conscientious objection of institutions. I refer to page 18 of my written submission wherein I point to a number of cases of the European Court of Human Rights which deal with that very issue. In one case, Rommelfanger v. The Federal Republic of Germany , the court held that a hospital was entitled to dismiss a plaintiff because he took ethical positions which were contrary to those of his employer. This would confirm that a hospital is capable in law of holding ethical positions. That case was then confirmed in Lambardi Vallauri v. Italy in which it was held that a Catholic institution can limit the rights and freedoms of other people in order to protect its ethos. I have also appended at the back of my written submission an extensive survey of the laws in the various states of the United States of America in relation to conscientious objection. Members will note that many of them do afford a right of conscientious objection to institutions. There is no difficulty at all in providing for that.

On Senator Healy Eames's question of whether we are obliged to legislate for the X case, in my opinion, we are not, most particularly in light of the evidence that we received in January and during the past couple of days from the psychiatrists. I believe it would be unwise and that members of the joint committee, as legislators, have a duty to the people they represent to implement good laws which are representative of the best of medical practice and evidence-based. The degree of dissatisfaction among the doctors, as expressed over the past few days, should be a considerable cause of concern to members. The division which seems apparent among the ranks of the psychiatrists would appear to be an ideological one rather than one based on medical evidence. It might have been more appropriate for the institute to have made a representation on its own behalf, similar to the Law Library and solicitors-----