Dying with Dignity Bill 2020: Second Stage [Private Members]
Dail Éireann — 2020-10-01
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

I commend Deputy Gino Kenny on introducing the Dying with Dignity Bill 2020. He has put a great effort into it, as have all who have worked with him, some of whom have campaigned for many years to get to this point and ensure people have the right to make a decision on the end of their life and to have their life end with dignity in the way they choose. It is very disappointing that the Government has tabled an amendment. It is wholly unnecessary. It is very unfortunate that it has used the phrase "assisted suicide" because I do not believe it captures at all what we are talking about. It conjures up very different notions. What we are talking about is people who, like pretty much all of us, have wanted to live but whose choice about living is taken from them at the end, often in really awful circumstances. It is a question of whether life should end on their terms and whether they should have a choice about how their life should end so they can die with the utmost dignity and with as little pain and suffering as possible.
I do not understand why anybody would want to deny people whose choice to live is taken away from them by illness, which illness is certain to end their life, the right to choose the terms on which that should happen in order to minimise the pain and suffering, physical and spiritual, that they undergo in those circumstances. I do not see why anyone would do that. In some cases - it is not an exaggeration to say this - to deny them that right is to torture them. It is literally putting them through excruciating, unbearable suffering and hardship against their will. That is a form of torture in an already difficult situation. Why would we want to do that to somebody? What right has anybody to deny a person the right to decide the terms on which his or her life should end when his or her life is certain to end?
Society has moved on from the days when people in the State or the church or from some moral code they held thought they could dictate to other people how they should live their lives. I thought we had moved past that. It seems, however, that with the delaying tactics, we are bending to the will of people who want to hold back that progress in Irish society. There is no justification for it. There are, for example, no constitutional issues arising. As the Supreme Court stated in 2012 that there were no constitutional issues, what do we need to consider? The matter has been discussed before in committee. If this Bill passes Second Stage, it will be discussed again in an all-party committee. All the Government needs to do is allow this Bill go to the next Stage where it will get all-party consideration. If the Government wants to set up other parallel processes that can be done as well but there is no reason to delay the Bill. Every moment of delay means that a small number of people - this is about only a small number of people - may suffer unnecessarily. Why would we do anything that would allow that to happen? I appeal to the Government to withdraw its amendment and to allow this Bill to proceed in order that we can have a mature discussion about the legislation and, hopefully, get it enacted soon, to make a difficult and tragic situation for many people a little less unbearable and cruel.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-10-01/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:38+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-10-01