Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In particular, my input is directed to amendment No. 23. I compliment the bravery, understanding and research of colleagues across the floor who cannot accept the decision based on the X case. It was a flawed judgment. Anybody who sat through our committee hearings understands that. It is the one thing that emerged. The Supreme Court in the X case heard no proper legal arguments on suicide. There was no proper, in-depth hearing. How could the court deliberate properly without hearing the evidence on both sides - for and against? I put down an amendment previously on the Title of the Bill, which is misleading, erroneous and false.

I note that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs is in the Chamber. The Government has kept going back to a Supreme Court decision from a long time ago but it ignored a recent Supreme Court judgment, which was unanimous, having heard all the facts, on the misappropriation and misspending of money voted by the House in the children's referendum. We can ignore it when it suits us. We can use it and abuse it when that suits us. That is what the Government has been doing. The separation of powers is quite clear for the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. There was a total absence of medical science at the time of the Supreme Court decision in 1992. We have moved on in so many ways. Great progress has been made in our understanding of medical science and health care. As the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, has said, the absence of a treatment plan in the Bill illustrates that it is cobbled together legislation involving Fine Gael kowtowing to the Labour Party. I would not even call it the Labour Party, but the takeover Labour Party. It is not the Labour Party I knew.

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