Results 861-880 of 7,581 for speaker:Rónán Mullen

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Report of the Review of the Operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: If I may, it strikes me that you are only really-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Report of the Review of the Operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: That was a very ideological response. I think I have to put that on the record and-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Report of the Review of the Operation of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (18 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: -----we need something much more objective.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Gabhaim míle maith ag an gCathaoirleach agus cuirim fáilte roimh na h-aíonna uilig. I apologise in advance that I will have to leave fairly early after my questioning because we are launching the Oireachtas essay competition for senior cycle schools today. If the witnesses know anyone who might want to enter that, we would be delighted to hear from them. Beidh idir...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Understood, but Dr. O'Shea is talking about fewer than 1% of the registered practitioners.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Of those 100 members, how many are full-time palliative care professionals?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Have any palliative care professionals signed up?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Would Dr. O'Shea accept the great majority - to the point we have hardly heard from any opposing voice - of those palliative care professionals, be they doctors or other healthcare professionals, are concerned about any change in that law?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Dr. O'Shea recommends there should be a prognosis of less than six months to live. It is also proposed that the determination of that prognosis would be a matter for two GPs and there would not be a requirement for specialist advice. In the context of capacity to consent and a determination of there being less than six months to live, is this not something complex and, in effect, incapable...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: However, Dr. O'Shea is not saying it would be required.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: This is a life-and-death issue. The proposed safeguards, in essence, are a five-day waiting period and, in fairness, a stated wish to exclude people with mental health conditions. I note that Dr. O'Shea's organisation is named after the Canadian model of medical assistance in dying, which is, to say the least of it, controversial in terms of how it has become a runaway train. It seems to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Healthcare Provision and Healthcare Professionals: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Understood. The question was specific.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in Canada: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: It worries me that there can be, as Deputy Troy mentioned, such a remarkable contrast in the analysis being given. I noted Professor Downie’s reassurance that there had not been sanctions and breaches, but to then hear that there were breaches in Quebec makes me realise that you cannot read one paper without reading the other in order to get the full picture. That is a challenge to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in Canada: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Would Dr. Trouton be aware of reports from, for example, Belgium? Recently, I saw a documentary where people involved in providing assisted suicide or euthanasia were not comfortable speaking about it. There is research that up to one half of doctors who participate in an assisted death experience significant psychological and emotional distress. There are refusals by physicians in Canada...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in Canada: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Does it not trouble Dr. Trouton or Professor Downie at all that something like 7% of all deaths in some parts of Canada – I believe it is Ottawa, but also Quebec – are MAID? That would be seen as a runaway train by almost everyone in Ireland. It would amount to 2,500 deaths per year in our population. It would be in or around the number of deaths during Covid, and we all know...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in Canada: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in Canada: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: I am conscious of time, so I apologise for these quickfire questions. Will Professor Lemmens let me know whether a doctor breaks the law if he or she is the first to raise the subject of MAID and recommend it to a vulnerable person?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in Canada: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: I note Dr. Trouton used the phrase "abortion care", which is still quite a controversial phrase in this country. It made me wonder whether, if we change our law in Ireland, we will in the future use a phrase like "euthanasia care". Would we use something like "medically assisted in dying"? It seems to me that language is key here and language seems sometimes designed to sanitise and make...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in Canada: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: I was referencing a paper from the C.D. Howe Institute. I thought it was a very troubling, low level of physician home visitation and palliative home care. It suggests to me that all is not well. If I may just draw on what was asked by my friend and colleague, Deputy Gino Kenny, whether everybody there would be in favour of a more limited model of assisted suicide, such as is often cited...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in Canada: Discussion (17 Oct 2023)

Rónán Mullen: I will throw it out to any of the speakers, but it makes most sense to put it to the witnesses who were critical of the existing law.