A retired GP who had been in contact with the woman who died in a Dublin town house last Friday knew last November that she intended to commit suicide.
Dr Libby Wilson (75), from Glasgow, Scotland, spoke to the woman by phone a week before she died and, by then, was also aware of her plans to travel to a rented apartment or house in Dublin to take her life.
Dr Wilson said she tried to dissuade the woman from her plan and told her she could not assist her. However, she said she was "absolutely certain" the woman intended going ahead with it.
She did not make any attempt to contact the woman's family with the information because she regarded her as her patient, and as such, "I felt I had to respect her privacy and confidentiality".
Dr Wilson is convenor of the Friends At The End (FATE) organisation which, she said, was sympathetic to voluntary euthanasia but did not promote it.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, she said: "While I am in favour of doing what one can for people suffering terminal illness and whose death is inevitable within a short space of time, that's a totally different matter from somebody who is in middle life and who has got a very severe depressive illness."
The woman got contact details for Dr Wilson from a group in the US who had met the doctor at conferences on euthanasia. The woman came across the group on the Internet.
Dr Wilson said the woman first telephoned her at the end of last November and was very distressed. "She actually asked me if I could assist her by going to Dublin and I said that was totally out of the question. It wasn't within my powers to do that and I wouldn't do it anyway.
"But on the other hand I did encourage her to talk because she was obviously very distressed. She told me a lot about her situation in not a terribly connected sort of way."
The woman told her she had attempted suicide before and ended up in a psychiatric ward. She also said she had tried numerous doctors and medication and nothing worked.
"I tried very hard to dissuade her from her intention to take her own life but I did say if you want to talk about it again, just phone me up."
The doctor next heard from the woman in early January when she said she was planning to commit suicide in Dublin so as not to upset the relatives with whom she lived.
"I don't really know anything about this American connection. I didn't know that she was actually having somebody from America to help her."
Dr Wilson was aware of the existence of such a service but had never heard of it being provided overseas before. She said she understood the individuals providing the service would not take any active part in the suicide but would stay with the person so they were not alone in their final moments.
Dr Wilson said she had "grave reservations" about the woman receiving such a service. "I am a doctor. I felt she had a psychiatric illness which should have been able to have been coped with."
Dr Wilson last heard from the woman when she sent the doctor a written account of her experiences, which she hoped would be published to help other people.
The woman included the phone number of the place she had rented in Dublin, but Dr Wilson only got her messaging service when she rang. She was contacted by gardaí who discovered the message after the woman's death.
Dr Wilson said she never diagnosed the woman. However, she said the woman showed signs of manic depression.
The doctor added: "if she had had the right treatment early enough in her life I think this might not have happened."