Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I thank the Senators who brought forward the Bill. There is a huge effort involved in drafting legislation for presentation to this House. I also welcome Jake's family. All of us here have been affected by suicide in some way or other down through the years. It is always a very difficult issue in terms of the questions that remain unanswered. In the vast majority of cases, we do not get answers. As I said, this is always a difficult issue for people to deal with, particularly for the families directly involved.

Section 30 of the Coroners Act states that the question of civil or criminal liability shall not be considered or investigated at an inquest and, accordingly, every inquest shall be confined to ascertaining the identity of the person in respect of whose death the inquest is being held and how, when and where the death occurred. In any inquest, it is not the role of the coroner to determine the cause of the event. In the case of a car traffic accident in which someone has died, for example, it is not up to the coroner to decide who caused the accident or who contributed to it. This is extremely important to note.

The Bill creates a problem in the civil and criminal areas in that if medication were prescribed and the coroner held that such prescribing was incorrect, a legal difficulty would be created and that would be a matter for the civil courts. For example, if this Bill were enacted, a coroner's inquest will require experts from both sides to give evidence.