should we introduce living wills, which would inform our loved ones and the medical profession about the type of medical treatment we would be willing to undergo in the event that serious illness made us incapable of communication.

The Irish Council for Bioethics initiated the survey last week and the results will be contained in a report due for release by the end of the year. It is being conducted in the wake of the deaths of Schiavo and Cork man Martin Barry, a 30-year-old multiple sclerosis sufferer, who travelled to Switzerland last year to receive an assisted suicide.

Barry was helped to kill himself by the Dignitas group, which assists people with terminal illnesses to take their own lives.

Before his death he explained his plans in an interview on The Marian Finucane Show on RTE radio. His death caused much controversy and sparked a debate about assisted suicide and euthanasia in Ireland. The Irish Council for Bioethics' study is certain to fuel further discussion on these issues.

The survey forms part of the fourth annual report compiled by the council since it was set up in 2002 as an independent body to consider the ethical issues raised by developments in science and medicine.

"We carried out an MRBI poll to see what area of bioethics Irish people were most interested in and we found that people were most interested in advanced directives [living wills], " said Dr Siobhan O'Sullivan, the council's scientific director. "This was probably due to the publicity covering the Terri Schiavo case last year.

We are really interested in finding out what people's wishes are if they happen to fall ill. This can alleviate the burden on the ill person."

There is a clear distinction between living wills and euthanasia, Dr O'Sullivan said. "A living will is nothing to do with euthanasia. We are keen to come away from that idea as an advanced directive is not enforceable if the actions outlined in it are themselves illegal, for example a request for euthanasia."

The use of painkillers, life-prolonging treatments, death in hospital or at home and the decisions that should be made for you in the case of a long-term coma are among the questions raised in the Living Wills survey, which is being intensely debated among various religious groups and campaign groups.

"Nobody is quite sure how useful living wills are in reality, " said Dr Berry Kiely, spokeswoman for the Irish ProLife Campaign. "They can be a good way of helping a doctor in deciding what to do in cases of dementia but the difficulty is that they tend to be couched in vague terms. This means that they can be hard to interpret as there can be a long road from diagnosis until death in the case of a terminal illness."

While the Irish Pro-Life Campaign is vehemently opposed to euthanasia, Dr Kiely maintains that the group are neither for nor against the idea of people making living wills. She said: "I don't think that there is any relationship between euthanasia and living wills. They are more about patient autonomy than anything else and we are more concerned about how useful they are in practical terms."

Fr Kevin Doran, secretary to the Irish Bishops Committee for Bioethics, said:

"The Irish bishops have not formally studied this area yet but I do think that it is understandable that people would wish to influence what becomes of them later in life if they are no longer in a position to make their own decisions. I would think that a living will should be an expression of a personal preference and of personal values but they should not be too specific or too rigid.

"This is partly because, with advances in medicine, circumstances and possibilities may change over the years. Reaffirming the Catholic Church's opposition to euthanasia, he concluded: "An advanced directive could never be used to require another person to assist in an action which was intended to end a life."

Outside organised religion, the Humanist Association of Ireland (HAI) takes a position that self-determination is a priority for each adult in a democracy. "To be allowed to refuse treatment where a person is in intolerable pain or suffering unbearable loss of dignity is a basic right and to make this known in advance is only practical, " said secretary Ann James.

"We believe people should be able to make their wishes known through an advanced directive. We are pleased that this subject is being discussed."