Professor Richard Huxtable:

Another huge head scratcher of a question. I did not have a magic formula for this, but I will offer a few observations. These are partly informed by what some other committees, broadly along the lines of this one, have done in other jurisdictions. I think part of what is being sought is a sharp focus on the jurisdiction in question. That means a sharp focus on Ireland and the diverse stakeholders across and within Ireland but also informed by international experience. I will outline some of the things that can be done with a view to the populations that are being served. There are elements or approaches such as the so-called citizens' jury, that have being used, as I mentioned earlier, in Jersey to gather the views of the population who hear a range of evidence themselves and offer some thoughts.

A referendum has already been mentioned as a possible route to gathering the will of the people. Beyond that, I would say that one of the things to seek to balance is the quantitative elements, the numbers saying this, that and the other, with the deep qualitative experience. That would be the experience of, for example, the citizens at large but also people with direct experience of terminal or other illness.

The second part of my proposition is that the committee needs to be informed by evidence from beyond the jurisdiction. By this I mean something similar to what the House of Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill did in 2005. It visited places like Oregon and the Netherlands to get under the bonnet of those systems to see how they work and gather those perspectives.

It is not the neatest formula. In my work I try to figure out how to balance quantitative views at large with qualitative in-depth views which are led by particular stakeholder lived experiences, while also making room for the experts. I have no magic answer I am afraid, but hopefully there are some useful suggestions at least.