John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for the compassion he has shown towards the family. I am sure they are grateful to hear him say it. None of us ever hopes to have to avail of assisted suicide, and this is quite clear in most people's minds. The reality is that in the absence of a debate on this issue, very many people like Marie Fleming are being deprived of this freedom to make a dignified exit from this life through extraordinary pain. In an opinion poll published in The Irish Times in 2010 on behavioural attitudes, 55% of people indicated that terminally ill people should have a right to a dignified exit from life if they choose this way. We know of terminally ill people who, because of the severity of their circumstances and pain, refuse food and hydration as a means of ending their life. Many doctors are coming forward to state that people are coming to them asking for help because they find their pain unbearable. I ask the Taoiseach and party leaders to consider at least a debate at some stage in the Dáil. I do not know whether it would require the introduction of a Bill. If so, I will do this.

Anybody who speaks to Marie and her family will see the unending pain and torture she is going through with an end in sight anyway. To have to see this end in unbearable pain is undignified. Not alone as it undignified for the woman herself, as she will tell one, it is undignified for us as a society to allow this to happen, particularly with somebody who is competent and intelligent, who knows she is inflicting pain on her family and friends and who wants to have a dignified exit. At the very least we have a right to have this debated in the House.

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