Mr. Garret Ahern:

A comparison between our healthcare system and the US healthcare system, which is primarily based on whether people have private healthcare insurance and if they have not, they can go somewhere else, is perhaps unfair.

However, I understand and trust the point the Senator is trying to make.

On legislative concerns the Senator might have, we on this side of the room can only relay our personal experiences and viewpoints. We are not medical or legal professionals. This is just a heartfelt honest view, delivered through the lens of the pain and suffering we have experienced, of what we believe, after much thought and introspection, might bring changes for the greater good. We will never have the perfect law, but it is the task of this committee and Members of the Oireachtas to take the considerations of everyone who makes a submission to the committee and try to make the best and most robust fist of this going forward. Let us not let perfection be the enemy of the good. Life is finite and corporeal. We have our dignity to live our lives. I know a great many elderly people who still want to keep going despite their advanced age. There are challenges in the healthcare system. As was said, they are discussed every day in the Oireachtas. If adequate and robust provisions can be put in place to support people with mental health issues, people who are living in isolation or feel vulnerable and people who have disabilities, they may not fall into the thought process of considering this to be an option. I am speaking idealistically now. Is it not the aspiration of citizens and politicians to try to create the best society we can for all our citizens? Again, let us not allow perfection to be the enemy of the good. In the case of terminal illness and untreatable pain, to leave someone in that pain and suffering because we have a concern about some hypothetical situation that might occur in the future does a disservice to a large percentage of people who suffer in this way.