Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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In principle, I am one of the people who, had I been asked, would have said I broadly support the choice of assisted dying. I do not want to give a misconception about myself. I differ from Deputy Higgins in that I think over these three sessions on coercion we have looked at mental health and discussed that. We have looked at palliative care supports and I hear the witnesses loud and clear. We have an increasing and aging population. We need to scale up palliative care supports and make sure they are a choice. We have talked about psychological assessment. I come back to the perception of death, because Dr. Linane focused on this. When you are present at someone's death, there are misunderstandings about changes in breathing. There is a perception of distress.

I have family members who have the lasting view that there was distress at the end of their mother’s life. However, when I read Kathryn Mannix’s story, I realised that was not what it was at all, and I became an evangelist for that.

One of the key points is that death is a natural part of life. You can have a diagnosis, and there are issues which go with that. None of us knows how we would respond to that. However, the perception of what death may look like is an influencing factor. We need to explore that a little bit more because I think that can be coercive in future decision-making.