Dr. Una Molloy:

I thank the Senator. In my experience, people are more distressed about the thought of dying than living. They want to live, rather. On that idea about being conscious and making a decision around a person's exact moment of death, from our perspective we work with people to do all that sort of work, being with and communicating with their family. We provide a lot of support around therapies and pre-bereavement work, where we get families to do memory boxes and stories for their children or whoever is important to them in their lives. That, obviously, is based on every different person. It is important we remember that. What I see is distress around the fact they know they are going to die, rather than anything else, and they would like to live as much as possible.

I agree with what Deputy Healy-Rae also mentioned. We do change, and of course we change. We have different reasons we want to be alive. My fear is that if we decide we would like to end our lives on a particular day, that day will come and suddenly we will say we would like to be here for one more week with our daughter or son. In the moments where we have that extra time, we can make decisions that impact on how our families can live without us, ultimately. It is really important we do not forget the people left behind.