The leader of the Swiss right-to-die organisation involved in the assisted suicide of an Irish man last year said yesterday he did not think the man was the first person from Ireland to use the organisation.
Ludwig Minelli of Dignitas said the organisation would never give information about people without the consent of the people or their families, and he had no consent.
"This is a principle and we respect this principle," Mr Minelli, a lawyer, said in an interview with RTÉ Radio One's Liveline programme.
Asked if the Irish man involved in last year's assisted suicide had been severely injured in an accident, he said: "Well, if you say it, it's your information. I can't speak on the case, I'm very sorry."
The RTÉ presenter Derek Davis asked Mr Minelli if the man was the first person from Ireland to use Dignitas. Mr Minelli replied: "I don't think so."
He said he had met the man when he was in Dublin for a debate at University College Dublin and had visited him.
Asked if the man was able to personally communicate his wishes to him as his communication skills were poor but intellect good, Mr Minelli said: "Well again, I tell you I can't give you information about a single case, but I can tell you we will never accompany a person to suicide if the person is not able to communicate or to make decisions.
"We always look first if the person is able to make decisions and is the person able to communicate, and if these conditions are fulfilled we can help them.
"We have to get the medication. We always need a prescription for the person and the physicians would never write a prescription without having spoken to the patient," he said.
Asked who administered the fatal drugs, he replied: "Our collaborators. A medical person is not needed because it is not a medical operation. In order to give a glass of water with a barbiturate you don't need a physician.
"If somebody's not able to swallow perhaps he's able to feed the water solution through a feeding tube. It depends always on the circumstances. But it is always clear it must be a suicide and this means the person who wants to die must do the last act in their life themselves."
He was asked how that was possible with severely handicapped persons who could not feed themselves. "Oh, it is possible, it is possible. You know, the physician also makes a record and in his report he writes that a person is able or not, if he writes that a person is not able, then we can't make an accompaniment," Mr Minelli said.
He said Dignitas only made contact with physicians in the country where a person lived with the permission of the patient.
Asked what the criteria was for Dignitas to assist, he said: "That the person is able to make decisions and able to communicate, and the right to suicide is guaranteed by article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights."
He was asked if he would sanction a Dignitas assisted suicide for somebody who, for instance, was depressed.
Mr Minelli replied: "If there is long-term depression, why not?"
He said it was not true that many mental disorders were remedial.
On the procedures followed in assisted suicides, he said: "It depends on the case. We meet them at the airport, we meet them at the railway station, perhaps they go to a hotel, and after they visit the physician, they go to our apartment in order to be accompanied."
Asked if Dignitas had a contact in Ireland who put Irish people in touch with him in Switzerland, Mr Minelli said: "No, we haven't."