Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

I ask the Chair for an extra minute. I will try to be fast. Before answering the Senator, I want to say that in the real world, Senator Ruane and I are on the same page on many issues. I consider myself a libertarian, a feminist and an anti-racist advocate.

Those are all political ideologies which have the parameters for me to live a good life and to be generous towards other people. I hope I have done that and if I live long enough, I want to continue doing that.

The issue at hand is very complex for me. I am normally on the other side but I live in this body. I have lived in this body a long time. I have also held the bodies of cousins, friends and family members who have been cut down from a tree, pulled out of a river or taken out of a car after being in a car crash. Every time it comes to this discussion, I understand your difficulty because I understand my own. I suppose that is the difference between being disabled and not being disabled. I do not mean that in a facetious way. People will vote for you to be a Senator. People will never vote for me as a Senator. That is the way of the world. My fear is that when we set precedents, and we do set precedents, be they formal or informal, legal or general, the precedents then become the norm.

I have bad days. I have spent time in psychiatric institutions. I have had to wait a long time to get the mental health help I needed. I would still consider myself shaky. We saw the programme last week about young Patrick. I was invited to go on that programme but I could not do it because it is too raw. It is too near me.

Deputy Kenny is a working-class man. In another life we would be on the same page. The language I use around euthanasia is the language I know from history, the language of what it was like to be a Jew, to be a Traveller, to be disabled, to be a gay person, to be Sinti or Roma. That is my heritage. That is the language my people were brought to their graves with. I am sorry if anyone feels that is not appropriate but that is the only language I know.

It is unusual for Senator Mullen and I to be on the same side but it shows the multifaceted ways in which different lives come together at very important moments. I mean no disrespect. These bodies claim to represent disabled people but they still have not lived their lives.

We cannot document everything that happens to us on a daily basis. While I respect the position or non-position of the committee members I feel that if more disability organisations were funded and led by disabled people, we would be in a stronger position.

I thank the Chair for the invitation. The last thing I would say is that I respect this House, and the country that I was reared in, although it did not very much respect or cherish me. I am here giving testimony and a contribution on an issue that is not very much like the referendum on marriage or the same as removing gender from the legislation. All the other liberal things we have done in this country have been brilliant. We have grown up and have seen our young people vote in what I consider to be the correct way because of what our generation had to put them through. I greatly worry that if this comes to pass, that it will be offered to someone like me because I am having a bad day or because I am not being a good patient. I thank the Chair.