Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am going to be very blunt about this motion and this report. Quite simply, the adoption of the recommendations contained in this report would represent the crossing of an ethical and legislative Rubicon that is almost too terrifying to even contemplate. If adopted, the Oireachtas will have opened up a Pandora’s Box where the likelihood of grave injustices being visited upon one of the most vulnerable groups in our society will move from grim possibility to absolute certainty. The recommendation to proceed with legislation in this area, contrary to the overwhelming concerns of palliative care experts and hospice providers, is breathtaking in its arrogance, apparent indifference and wilful cruelty. Given the clear and unambiguous international experience, there can be no excuses from Members to say they were operating in good faith or that they were hoping for the best. We know what the outcome of permissive law in this will achieve; the untimely, unfair and cruel and intentional infliction of premature death where care and compassion should have been offered.

This Dáil must reject this report. It must not allow what is essentially a monstrous dereliction of care to become embedded in our understanding of medicine and our treatment of the vulnerable. Once this line is crossed, I am sure that members will in time come to see it as one of the single worst decisions they have ever taken. I will quote from Jane Lazar of End-of-Life Ireland on this report.

We’re asking you as legislators, to honour a person who has a terminal or life limiting diagnosis. Because time alone, or ‘foreseeable death’ ought not be the sole basis for calculating eligibility criteria...

I ask Members to consider the dire situation this will create for those with dementia, reduced capacity, young children or the those who are in poverty and cannot afford medical care that ought to be theirs by right. We have seen, in every single jurisdiction where so called "cautious law" in this area is introduced, that it quickly expands to include the most wide ranging categories of people.

I would also like to quote from the minority report on this issue. Page 3 of the minority report states:

What was most surprising was that at the end of the hearings, there were no committee meetings to discuss the import of the evidence received. Rather, following the final public Committee meeting a draft report was prepared by the secretariat together with possible recommendations, and committee members were given three working days to submit amendments. At the first private meeting to discuss this draft Report, some committee members moved quickly for a vote on the first recommendation that ‘the Government introduce legislation allowing for assisted dying, in certain circumstances as set out in the recommendations of this report. That vote was held despite calls for prior full deliberation on all [of] the evidence presented, as summarised in the draft Report. One amendment to that wording ultimately prevailed – the addition of the word ‘restrictive.’

Thus, without any committee discussion of the over seventy hours of oral testimony nor of the many private submissions, there was a rush to vote on the substantive issue. At that point the Committee members had not fully clarified for themselves what was meant by assisted dying, as evidenced by a proposed amendment to the draft Report – that clarification only subsequently emerged after debate during the second private meeting on the draft Report.

I ask this very serious question. Why are we determined to replicate the moral and ethical horrors that legislation of this kind ushers in everywhere that it has been supported? Where is our sense of the sacredness of human life gone? What is the real agenda here? Why are we determined to simply dismiss the pleas of palliative care professionals and set ourselves up as gods on the issue of life and death? This report must be rejected outright. It is an affront to every ethical and medical protection that exists for the vulnerable and for the sick. It will be to our lasting shame if this report is adopted.

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