Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Apologies have been received from Senators O'Loughlin and Hoey.

Parliamentary privilege is considered to apply to the utterances of members participating online in a committee meeting when their participation is from within the parliamentary precincts. There can be no assurances in respect of participation online from outside the parliamentary precincts. Members should be mindful of this when contributing.

This committee discusses dying, including suicide. Support information can be found on the committee's web page.

The business today is an engagement on the topic of potential consequences: protecting and enhancing the provision of palliative care. I warmly welcome Dr. Regina McQuillan and Dr. Faith Cranfield, palliative medicine consultants and members of the Irish Palliative Medicine Consultants Association, IPMCA; Dr. Max Watson, programme director, Project ECHO, Hospice UK; and Dr. Matthew Doré, honorary secretary of the Association of Palliative Medicine for Great Britain and Ireland, APM. I thank the witnesses in advance for sharing their knowledge and expertise in their field. We appreciate their attendance as the work we have to do is important.

The format of the meeting is that all witnesses will give their opening statements and must adhere to the statement they provided. Members can then ask questions. A member can ask questions of an individual witness or address a question to all of the witnesses more generally. I ask witnesses to keep their opening statements to the agreed five minutes and there are clocks on the wall. Do not blame me for being tough about time because I must be. Otherwise, we would be here until 10 p.m.

I invite Dr. McQuillan to make her opening statement.