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FORMER DUBLIN TD Gino Kenny is cautiously optimistic that the issue of assisted dying will appear before politicians in the Dáil again, despite any reference of the topic being omitted from the draft Programme for Government.
Ex-People Before Profit TD for Dublin-Mid West Kenny first proposed a bill on voluntary assisted dying in 2020 that kicked started a committee to examine whether to introduce laws in Ireland.
The issue appeared before the Dáil at the end of the last term following a report by the committee that recommended assisted dying be made legal in Ireland with a number of safeguards.
Speaking to The Journal today, Kenny said he was not surprised that the issue does not feature in the Programme for Government, but is optimistic that it will appear before TDs again over the next five years.
He said he hopes People Before Profit will lead the charge to re-introduce the issue into the Dáil.
While admitting that the composition of the new Dáil is slightly different to the former chamber, he argued that a committee of TDs with a similar variety of views on the issue scrutinised the topic and a “clear majority” supported legislative action.
“If there was a vote tomorrow, it’d be very close in terms of people wanting to proceed to the next stage of the legal procedure. It ran out of time in the last Dáil, but there’s four and a half years there for it to be legislated for,” he said.
Kenny, who was unsuccessful in his bid to be re-elected to the Dáil last November, said he still believes there is the political will, scope and support for the issue to be debated and legislated for in the Dáil.
“There’s a lot of sympathy on this issue,” he said. “Some members of the committee were fully supportive, some others were opposed and another cohort of people were cautions, but hugely sympathetic to the issue – and wanted to hear all side of the debate.”
Despite a number of Fianna Fáil TDs sitting on the Oireachtas committee on Assisted Dying, the party’s election manifesto also made no mention of introducing assisted dying.
Party leader Micheál Martin told The Journal in November that the issue needed to be thought through more and that his party were not in a position to commit to any legislative proposals at the time.
He said the committee did “good work” but he wasn’t satisfied that members had taken an exhaustive look at the issue. Asked if it undermines the work of the group, Martin told reporters at the time: “We’re entitled, as a party, to have a position.”
No matter how you dress it up the truth is that all governments of the day have sought to deny citizens their rights and entitlements based on the fact that citizens have no knowledge of their entitlements, how to qualify like signing for credits to be entitled to a pension when they reach pensionable age if they are out of the workforce for caring roles or what exactly their medical card covers before charges are levied or indeed if they have a long term illness that they may be entitled to medication. In the case above. it is galling to hear Watt say “I don’t think anyone disputes that it was unfair … that’s different to legal entitlement.” There are none so blind as those who will not see and it is those most in need to are treated with such distain.
Is something is wrong. And you know it’s wrong. Saying but nobody told me it was wrong is just plain stupid.
Still , you have to have some sympathy for the tax payers and governments of the current era .They are expected to compensate everyone back to the foundation of the state ..I mean all the descendents of the executed 1916 leaders should be compensated should they not but by whom ,Britain I suppose .As for monies paid by nursing home residents many of whom have passed away is that to go to their ‘loved’ ones for extensions to houses, sun holidays and all the rest . Special needs people in care homes are frequently not capable of making a will and their money will go to random relatives who may have never visited them once when they were alive .We are a grand little country shure
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