Ministers will this morning discuss delaying a contentious Bill, which would legalise “assisted dying” in the State, to allow a special Oireachtas committee to consider the issue. The second stage vote is the first vote on a new law, after a debate on the general principles of the Bill. It can then be amended at the next stage, when it goes to the relevant Dáil committee for scrutiny. “We’ve studied the legislation and we believe it requires further consideration, and it’ll have that any committee stage,” Ms McDonald told reporters at Leinster House. “We have to get this right and I think we have to listen very carefully, particularly to those families who are either living through an experience or who have had the experience of real, real heartbreak and real physical suffering in their families.”

Source: The Irish Times September 29, 2020 00:00 UTC