Rónán Mullen (Independent)
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I welcome the witnesses and I agree with what the others have said. This is an issue of profound importance. Even the decision to discuss this issue is interpreted in different ways by people. Sometimes it takes courage to change the law, and sometimes it takes courage not to change the law. There are people who see this issue very much in terms of human autonomy and vindicating people's absolute right to make decisions about how their life ends. There are others who see it in terms of the old line from the poem by John Donne that, "no man is an island," or in more modern language that no person is an island. We are all impacted by decisions that are made, and there is a sense in which people will think that if we change the law then things may never be the same again. I thank the witnesses for helping us on the first day of our public meetings.

I will start with the Department of Justice. They talked about the change in the law around assisting a suicide and why that might have taken place. They used the language in passing that in a sense it in some way recognised that people have a right to make decisions in this area. I think they used the word "right". Yet, the Supreme Court has held that there is not a constitutional right to take one's own life. Does the decriminalisation of suicide mean that there is a right, even of a legislative kind, to end one's own life? For example, if I were to prevent somebody from taking their own life, do I interfere with a legal right that they have?