Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It will probably be no surprise that I support assisted dying. Our committee is here to grapple with and assess whether we can legislate for that over the coming period. It is a difficult and fundamental question to ask society and the committee. We all agree with that. There are obviously deficiencies in our health system in respect of inequalities and palliative care. It is to be hoped that will get much better over time but that should not be a barrier to legislating in future.

Dr. Kelleher said that other jurisdictions have legislated for this, even if it is very limited, and it is very limited in Ireland, New Zealand and Australia, but it is quite a fallacious argument to say that once A is legislated for, then B, C and D will automatically happen. There is no evidence of that. At the end of the day, we are legislators. If we legislate for assisted dying, it is us that will have to change the law or not. There is a whole mechanism whereby things change over time. Over the past 25 or 26 years, Oregon has not essentially changed the criteria for those who can avail of assisted dying. I do not agree that somebody can avail of assisted dying on the basis of having a mental health condition, but I agree with somebody availing of assisted dying in relatively limited circumstances. That has to be teased out over time.

The argument made that if we legislate then everybody will want to die falls apart. That is not the case. People want to live. They want to live as fully as possible. However, there are certain circumstances, and we all have personal experience of this, where people do not want to go through a very complicated and painful part of their life. Who is to say that they have to? Can anybody in this room or anywhere say to me that those people have to go through that? They should not. They should have a choice regarding how that ends. That is a fundamental right for everybody, as it is for the committee to debate this issue here and beyond.