The Irish health system is confronted by a range of challenges, both emerging and recurring. In order to address these, it is essential that spaces are created for conversations around complex ethical and legal issues. This collection provides a foundation for ongoing engagement with selected issues in contemporary Irish health contexts. It includes contributions from scholars and practitioners across a range of disciplines, most particularly, ethics, law and medicine. The essays are theoretically informed and are grounded in the realities of the Irish health system, by drawing on contributors' contextual knowledge.
This collection address important issues addressed including admission to care homes; assisted suicide; adolescent decision-making; allocation of finite resources; children in clinical trials; conscientious objection; data protection; decision-making at the end of life; mental health; the rights of older people; organisational ethics; patient responsibilities; stem cell research; the role of carers; and reproductive health. The collection draws out the following interlinking themes; context and care; rights and responsibilities; regulating research; and oversight of decision-making.
This book makes an informed and balanced contribution to academic and broader public discourse. It will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in ethics, law and health and those outside the academic sphere who must engage critically with the issues addressed.

Mary Donnelly is Professor of Law at University College Cork
Claire Murray is Lecturer in Law at University College Cork

Introduction - Mary Donnelly and Claire Murray
Part I: Context and Care
1. Reproductive justice in Ireland: A feminist analysis of the Neary and Halappanavar cases - Joan McCarthy
2. Conscientious objection, harm reduction and abortion care - Ruth Fletcher
3. Why care about carers? - Claire Murray
Part II: Rights and Responsibilities
4. The limits of autonomy: an exploration of the role of autonomy in the debate about assisted suicide - Louise Campbell
5. If she can consent, why can't she refuse? - Tom Walker
6. Patient autonomy and responsibilities within the patient-doctor partnership: two sides of the same unequal coin? - Asim Sheikh
7. Older people, human rights, law and policy - Mary Keys
8. Legal and ethical considerations in involuntary admission to long-term care - Shaun O'Keeffe
Part III: Regulating Research
9. Retention and use of human biological samples: The Guthrie card example - Deirdre Madden
10. A moral gap?: Examining Ireland's failure to regulate embryonic stem cell research - Ciara Staunton
11. Children in clinical trials in Ireland: Addressing the gaps in the legal framework - Katherine Wade
Part IV: Oversight of decision-making
12. Governance failures and organisational ethics: Perspectives from the Neary and Halappanavar cases - Heike Felzmann
13. Psychiatric Admission in Ireland: The Role of Country of Origin - Brendan Kelly
14. The relationship between the courts and mental health tribunals - Darius Whelan
15. Patient-centred dying: the role of law - Mary Donnelly
16. Improving end-of-life care in intensive care units - Barry Lyons
Index