A Dutch doctor who once supported euthanasia in the Netherlands has called on Ireland to not legislate for assisted suicide. A bill to permit the practice is currently before the Dail.

Theo Boer is Professor of Health Care Ethics at Groningen Theological University. After its legalisation in 2002, he worked for the Dutch authorities, reviewing euthanasia cases between 2005 and 2014.

Writing yesterday in the Sunday Independent, he noted that despite safeguards, numbers dramatically increased from 2,000 in its first year to 6,300 in 2019. In some urban districts, between 12pc and 14pc of all deaths are due to “assisted dying”. The total numbers are expected to double again in the near future.

He also said that initially, the law applied almost exclusively to terminally ill, mentally competent adults. Now it has extended to those with chronic conditions, disabled people, those with psychiatric problems, and incompetent adults with an advance directive.

He said expansion is under debate for euthanasia in young children and for elderly persons without a medical diagnosis.

He also predicted that legal limits could be subject to a challenge in the courts. In Quebec, the Superior Court last year ruled that the stipulation of a terminal illness in Canadian law is discriminatory and thus unconstitutional.

“Why euthanasia only for terminally ill patients, who already have access to an ever-widening array of palliative care, whereas chronic patients may suffer more intensely and for much longer?”

He also said the paradox of legalising assisted dying is that while it is welcomed by some, it becomes an invitation to despair for many others.

Since 2002, suicide rates have actually gone up by 15% in the Netherlands, while they have decreased by 10% in neighbouring Germany.

He writes that the Netherlands must act as an alarm to what can happen.

“I once believed it was possible to regulate and restrict killing to terminally ill, mentally competent adults with less than six months to live. I believed we could regulate suicide and curtail those all-too-familiar cases where someone ends their own life. I was wrong.”

“When even the most well-regulated and monitored system worldwide can’t guarantee that assisted dying remains a last resort, why would Ireland be more successful?”