Dr. Andrea Mulligan:

I agree with that. I mentioned earlier the courts have made some comments about surrogacy and they are a useful contrast. Here the Chief Justice was just saying there is no constitutional right to die, so the appellant was not going to win in the Four Courts and if the Oireachtas wants to legislate for this, it is free to but that she was not telling it to. By contrast, in surrogacy cases the Supreme Court was literally saying surrogacy was happening in Ireland and the Oireachtas was doing nothing about it, so it was essentially in default. I think Adrian Hardiman had some pithy comments along the lines of it being akin to failing to have road traffic law reflect the invention of the motor car. Thus, judges do not mince their words when they think the Oireachtas needs to legislate. They certainly did not do that here. They were just saying if the Oireachtas wanted to, it could.