The modus operandi of Dignitas, the Swiss right-to-die organisation that helped a 37-year-old Dublin man with paraplegia avail of assisted suicide late last year, was outlined at a debate in University College Dublin last October.
Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, told a debate on the legalisation of euthanasia at UCD's Literary and Historical Society: "It is not killing, if after a third person starts an automatic infusion pump, the person who wants to die is able to communicate 'let it go on' or 'stop it' before the pump has reached the point of no return".
This statement suggests that, where a patient is unable to swallow a barbiturate drink, either an intravenous or a subcutaneous infusion is set up in order to deliver a fatal drug dosage.
It is understood the Dublin man, who was a patient in Peamount Hospital in Newcastle, Co Dublin, until shortly before his death, would not have had the physical capacity to regulate the infusion himself.
He was unable to feed himself and had swallowing difficulties.
However, he was able to communicate with head movements. A neuropsychological assessment carried out in 2003 found he was mentally competent.
Mr Minelli told the debating society audience that the definition of suicide "pivots on the condition that the person who wants to die has full control of the last action directly causing their death".
Noting that about 80 per cent of Dignitas members who got a provisional "green light" from the organisation did not make use of assisted suicide but instead lived with their illness, he said: "Just knowing that they can have an assisted suicide liberates them from a terrible dilemma".
Mr Minelli also claimed that EU citizens had a right to access barbiturates for the purposes of assisted suicide.
Referring to a European Court on Human Rights ruling in 1980 (Artico v Italy), Mr Minelli said: "Everyone has an enforceable claim on the State to get sodium pentobarbital [ a barbiturate drug] so that they can have a risk-free and pain-free suicide".
Meanwhile, an editorial in today's British Medical Journal calls for specialists in clinical ethics to be appointed to hospitals in Britain.
Asked whether such posts should be introduced in the Republic, Prof Denis Cusack, professor of legal medicine at UCD, suggested the appointment of consultants in legal medicine who would have an expertise in clinical ethics.
Emphasising the potential bed-side role of such experts, he said: "We now need clinical legal medicine including ethics as a requirement for modern medical practice in hospitals."
"Studies have shown that ethics consultants are associated with reductions in time spend on ventilators and days in hospital, and that most doctors and nurses who have used the service find it helpful," the BMJ states.