Dr. Andrea Mulligan:

Yes, and that is to refuse treatment. That is essentially built on this fundamental right to refuse treatment, which extends to refuse nutrition. That Act was only commenced, I think, less than two months ago, so I imagine there are not examples of it happening under that Act yet. As I understand it, you could put in place a directive to say you were going to refuse food and nutrition until the point where you died. I do not know of examples of this happening in Ireland, but in the literature, there are documented examples of people in jurisdictions where assisted dying is not lawful deciding to go down that path. If you wanted to end your life now, the only way to do it, unless you were able to take active steps yourself, is essentially to refuse food, and there is literature on that occurring in other jurisdictions.