Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

This is an enormously difficult issue. Many people have seen their loved ones die in extraordinarily difficult situations and many people will be motivated by compassion on this issue. I have no doubt but that some of the campaigners who are looking for assisted suicide are also motivated by compassion. I have no doubt that is the case. However, I believe the introduction of assisted suicide is a very dangerous step and one that crosses a significant Rubicon in terms of the protection of the most vulnerable people in Ireland.

Assisted suicide is an outlier internationally. Only a small number of countries and jurisdictions have legalised it. Many progressive countries, such as the Nordic countries, have refused to introduce it due to the massive pressure it puts on older people. In countries which have introduced assisted suicide, the numbers availing of it start off low but very quickly, when the law normalises the practice, the numbers radically increase. In some countries thousands of people end their lives through assisted suicide every year. In Canada in 2022, nearly 14,000 people ended their lives through assisted suicide. That was a jump of 30% on 2021. Nearly one in 20 deaths recorded in that country was as a result of assisted suicide. Some 463 of these assisted suicides were by people who did not have a terminal illness and who did not face death. One in 20 deaths in Belgium are now the result of assisted suicide. The introduction of assisted suicide into Ireland would radically change our life-affirming culture and the protection of people who are very vulnerable.

If one crosses the Rubicon to make it legal for one adult to help another adult end their life it is impossible, I believe, to put a limit to that action in future. Many of the countries which have legalised assisted suicide have done it for strict reasons but they have radically increased the circumstances in which assisted suicide can be availed of even to include cases of assisted suicide for children or for people who do not have a terminal illness. There are cases where that has happened in the likes of Belgium, where a child has availed of assisted suicide. People in other countries have had assisted suicide for mental health issues. While mental health is a massively impactful issue on people’s lives, it is not an issue without hope or an opportunity for people to respond to treatments and to benefit from them. There have been incredible cases in Canada in recent times. A woman with a disability plead unsuccessfully for housing, having been refused the housing, then decided to go through assisted suicide. There is another woman with a disability, a chronic health condition, who has sought housing, been refused and now she is in the final stages of approval to end her life. Promoters of assisted suicide will say there are some examples in some jurisdictions where the breadth of access does not increase and they are right. There are exceptions to the rules and there are jurisdictions which have not increased access. Deputy Gino Kenny, in fairness to him, approaches this particular issue with compassion. I have no doubt about that. I also think he is very honest in the way he approaches this. However, he did say in his speech that he believes that choosing how you die is a human right. I might be wrong in this, but I would think that Deputy Kenny’s breadth of access would go way beyond the committee’s report on this issue and may just be a human right in every single case. I may be wrong in that but there are proponents -----

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