Ms Emer Maguire:

I thank everybody for the invite to speak before the committee and I apologise if I am a little bit nervous.

Four weeks ago, we buried the ashes of our beloved uncle Jay. He was the youngest of ten children and a much-loved uncle of 26 nieces and nephews. He would have celebrated his 60th birthday on 21 October. Jay died by euthanasia in Switzerland on Tuesday, 26 September. He was in good physical health and travelled on his own to Switzerland. He was met there by Sean Davison, director of Exit International in the UK. Davison’s role in this is to manage all aspects of Exit’s application assistance programme and ID programme. In essence, he ensures that the application to die is successful and identifies bodies after death. Prior to Sunday, 1 October, no one in our family had ever heard of Exit International.

The previous week, Jay had spoken to his brother about the Ireland-Scotland rugby match. He had arranged to meet his sister for a drink on the night of Saturday, 30 September, and had also told his nephew who was coming home from San Francisco that he would leave out a key for him if he was not home when he arrived on Thursday. When he failed to turn up to meet his sister and his nephew arrived at an unusually clean but empty house, both became worried about his well-being. Those closest to Jay were aware that he was struggling with his mental health and had encouraged him to seek help. However, he had managed to mask most of this with most of the people around him. In the weeks coming up to his death, he had gone on golf outings and to an Ireland rugby match and had chatted on the phone to a number of relatives and friends, none of whom had any suspicion of what was to come.

Having notified family and the Garda, my cousin continued his own investigation into Jay’s disappearance. He found a torn-up piece of paper with a number on it, which he promptly rang. A man answered and, when asked whether he knew my uncle, he replied that Jay’s sister would receive a call in the afternoon. About 30 minutes later, she received a call from Sean Davison to tell her that Jay had died by euthanasia five days previously in Switzerland, he had been with him when he died and had identified his body after his death, my uncle had been cremated on the morning of Sunday, 1 October, and his ashes were to be sent to her house during the week. He went on to say that my uncle had been joyful on the day of his death and had requested that his family not be notified of his death until after his cremation. Davison named his organisation and said that Jay had been a member for 15 years.