Rónán Mullen (Independent)
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First of all, I have no difficulty accepting what I think was the clarification. I do not think anybody intended to suggest otherwise. Nobody is saying that advocates of euthanasia or assisted dying are saying that other people are better off dead than alive. I think what they are saying is that if those people think they are better off dead than alive, then that is okay. However, I think that changes the world for many vulnerable people. The reassurances that we are getting here today include that Canada started with a radical law, so we will not call that an opening of the door or a slippery slope. I put it to our guests that Canada's law did not change out of a vacuum. It is part of a context where more permissive laws are developing. I refer to the reassurance that there is palliative care even where there is assisted dying.

My experience, having done a report for the Council of Europe, was that experts in palliative care very much saw assisted dying and euthanasia as having no part of that discussion. It is the white and the rich who go for this. They are the first in the queue. That offers no reassurance around the concern that many people have that, over time, the most vulnerable people in an inadequately resourced health system will not be the ones who have the most recourse to this option.

I say to Professor Binchy that Deputy Gino Kenny's point was to ask if there is a difference between those who are not getting better and those who may get better. I cannot understand how people who argue on the autonomy ground would make that distinction because it is discrimination for someone to be deprived of this new choice for any reason. Some people argue for limited euthanasia, whether for a principled or strategic reason, and those arguments may vary. Is there some kind of an argument of difference there?

Is it the case that support for a law change to allow for euthanasia and assisted dying is lowest among those who are disabled and elderly? If so, do the witnesses have a view as to why that might be the case?