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E-mailShane Clancy, who carried out a murder-suicide in Bray seven weeks ago, was given a three-week supply of antidepressant medication by a pharmacy despite his doctor instructing he should only be supplied one week's dosage at a time because of a previous overdose.
In an interview with the Sunday Tribune, Clancy's father Patrick claimed that even though his 22-year-old son informed a doctor that he had taken three weeks' worth of drugs in one day, he was still prescribed with more antidepressants.
It is believed the Trinity student may have overdosed on the second batch of medication prior to murdering Sebastian Creane and then taking his own life.
Toxicology results which will determine the level of drugs in his system are due back in the next few weeks.
Two days after initially overdosing on his medication, Clancy went to see another GP and allegedly informed him about what he had done.
Despite this, Patrick Clancy claims the GP prescribed a different antidepressant but left a note on the prescription telling the pharmacist to only supply Shane with one week of the drug at a time.
When his son then went to fill the second prescription, the chemist asked him if he wanted to get the three-week prescription filled at once, and Shane said yes.
"I don't know if he was attempting suicide when he took three weeks' worth of antidepressants in one day. I might never know. I don't want to be seen as pointing the finger at the doctors or the chemist, but surely if it said to only give him one week's supply at a time, the chemist should have followed that instruction," Patrick Clancy said.
"I know in my heart and soul it was Shane's hand that took a life – but it wasn't his mind. I do not know how he got to that point. He spent 22 years on this planet as a wonderful, loving person. But people are now judging him on the last hour of his life… Shane put a high dosage of chemicals into his body and I've no doubt he reacted to that," Patrick Clancy added.
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It is wrong to point the finger of blame at the person who prescribed - anyone can go out and take any amount of prescribed drugs all at the one time if they choose to do that.(If indeed tox reports showed he did take all the drugs together, or just said he did... His reasons for revealing this information are not clear...)
There needs to be a perspective here on how an adult is responsible for his own actions.
Blaming the three week script is as pointless and ridiculous as blaming the all night supermarket who sold Clancy the knives.
What are we to do? not allow anyone to do anything? ban sales of kitchen knives in shops for fear someone will go mad and stab someone else? ban more than a week's scripts for the depressed in case they take them all at the one time? so that patients have to keep returning to the doctor and paying again and again to be get another script? just in case??
and would everyone go out and kill their love rival, attempt to kill two others and stab themselves, even if they had finished the packet?
this action of taking all the drugs at the one time is bizarre and is not routinely done and it is the sole responsibility of the taker.
has no one taken into account the fact that anyone can walk into a pharmacy and buy three packets of panadol, take them all at the one time, and overdose?
Paracetamol is far easier to overdose on than cipramil.
If Clancy had wanted to take his own life - and god knows, isn't it a pity now that he didn't do it alone - he could have gone to the local pharmacy and done so for less than a few euro.