Daniel McConnell: Vicky Phelan fought to allow terminally ill people to die with dignity
Vicky Phelan during the launch of Dying with Dignity Bill 2020. Picture:Gareth Chaney/Collins
In July 2020, the recently retired Independent Alliance minister John Halligan rang me offering me an opinion piece about his Dying with Dignity Bill which had lapsed with the change of government a month before.
Spurred on by the 2013 Marie Fleming case, Halligan had sought to get legislation passed to allow terminally ill people end their lives and give them a dignified death.
In rejecting Marie Fleming’s case to be allowed end her own life — she was suffering from MS — the court stated that it was open to the Oireachtas to bring in legislation to allow people a choice in a way that is consistent with the Constitution.
But between Covid-19 and Halligan’s retirement, it fell to others to take up the torch.
Seeking to argue for someone to take up the fight, Halligan wrote in the Irish Examiner on July 22, 2020: “I believe this legislation could still bring about significant and welcome change for those suffering from terminal illnesses. At its core, it proposes to amend the Suicide Act of 1993 so that a medical practitioner who provides assistance in accordance with the Act, by prescribing and administering a substance to assist with ending a qualifying person’s life, would not be guilty of a criminal offence.”
Into the breach stepped People Before Profit TD Gino Kenny who moved to introduce the bill into the Dáil.
Mr Kenny, having heard Vicky Phelan speaking on the issue in public since she emerged as a national figure in 2018, reached out to her to see if she would support his new bill.
A trailblazer, Vicky had taken on the system that wanted her to shut up and go away. When she refused, she forced the system to sit up, take notice and, more importantly, change.
“I knew she had spoken about the issue before the bill. She was candid about her views. I contacted Vicky, saying that I was going to introduce the bill. She said she would support it and support it publicly, which was big,” Kenny told the Irish Examiner.
I made contact with several of the political parties to see if they intended backing Kenny’s bill. The only one to do so immediately was Alan Kelly, the Labour leader who became a friend to Vicky as she exercised her political muscles.
Vicky along with Tom Curran, husband of the late Marie Fleming, and Gail O’Rourke, who was acquitted after being charged with seeking to aid her friend travel to Switzerland to access euthanasia services, all attended to support the bill at its formal launch outside Leinster House in September 2020.
For me, the Dying with Dignity Bill had become a fascinating issue and I reached out to Vicky to see if she would back it. Over the course of texts and a number of phone calls, she formulated her words of support.
“I am supporting the Dying with Dignity Bill because I believe the time is right to have a debate on the issue of dying with dignity,” she told me.
“We voted overwhelmingly in 2018 in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment to remove the constitutional ban on abortion. I am hoping that the people of Ireland, and the 160 TDs who serve us, will support this bill and allow people, like me, who are terminally ill, to end my life peacefully when the time comes,” she added.
But it was this following paragraph that stopped me in my tracks.
“For those people who are opposed to assisted dying, I would ask them to put yourselves in my shoes, and imagine what it is like to be me, for even one minute and how frightening it is to know that I will most likely die in pain. All I am asking is to be allowed to go gently, when my pain starts to become unmanageable. I do not want to die but I am going to die,” she said.
The bill was picked out of the lottery for debate in the Dáil soon after but it was clear the Government was not on board, and was set to oppose the bill.
But on the night the Dáil was voting on the bill, there was mass confusion.
Amid a lack of clear direction from on high, government TDs revolted against a bid to kick the bill into a 12-month talking shop committee.
At the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting, held only a couple of hours before the vote on the bill, several TDs pressed their leader Taoiseach Micheál Martin on the government amendment.
Sources within the party have said that questions to Mr Martin, about how the bill was proceeding, from Éamon Ó Cuív, Andreas Moynihan, and Cormac Devlin were “not addressed adequately”.
There was definitely an element of pointedly defying the wishes of the leader.
“Micheál was confronted about what we felt was the unacceptable fact that the bill was being passed at second stage under the government amendment, albeit delayed a year. Many of us felt the process should start at the beginning. But he gave us nothing so anyone who was wavering simply voted against,” said one TD.
As a result, a synchronised decision was taken by a group of TDs to vote down the government amendment and ultimately 11 Fianna Fáil TDs — junior minister Mary Butler, Jackie Cahill, former minister Dara Calleary, Cormac Devlin, Joe Flaherty, John Lahart, John McGuinness, Michael Moynihan, former deputy leader Éamon Ó Cuiv and former minister Brendan Smith — all voted against the amendment. Kenny is convinced that Vicky’s public backing of the bill helped sway the vote and allowed its passage by 81 votes to 70.
“It was very significant, it was one of the factors on where the vote went on the night. That is because she is tremendously respected; her name gave weight to the issue. Vicky’s contribution was hugely significant,” Kenny said.
Last year, the Oireachtas Justice Committee having deliberated on the bill found it had “serious technical issues” in several sections, that it may have unintended policy consequences.
“Therefore, it reluctantly decided that the bill should not progress to Committee Stage but that a Special Oireachtas Committee should be established, at the earliest convenience, to progress the matter. In addition, all submissions received by the Justice Committee would be shared with any such Committee,” the committee decided.
Kenny says despite this setback, “the fight has just begun”.
A Special Oireachtas Committee to examine the issue of voluntary assisted dying is expected to commence shortly, building on Kenny’s and Vicky’s work.
“But I remember Vicky’s role in all of this as truly significant. We will carry on the fight,” he said.
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