Professor Ella Arensman:

On the first points that were part of the Senator's overall question, when she was talking I was reflecting. In line with what has been said by colleagues before and what our research has identified, we probably would not be discussing some of the questions we have discussed today if we were already at the stage of having integrated mental and physical healthcare and accepting it as the norm. The committee should use this opportunity to look at countries and areas where this has happened, because it would not be such a huge task or endeavour to bring in the normality of integrated mental and physical healthcare, certainly for that very important group of people with the comorbidities.

On suicide prevention, there has been an acceleration in leadership in recent years, with a lot of credit due to the HSE and the National Office for Suicide Prevention, NOSP. One of the outstanding features has been that the NOSP has not only tried to put in place a strategy, but with a clear, detailed implementation plan and independent monitoring and evaluation. That type of template, completely tailored to a pilot model of assisted dying for a specific group, would at least come close to safeguards and good practice, which we have clearly missed in the early years in some of the countries we have discussed here. That is possible and feasible, but it requires very vigorous planning and reviews of the dos and don'ts in other countries.