Veteran broadcaster Gay Byrne has revealed that he "would have to consider" assisted suicide if he was suffering from a "long drawn-out terrible illness of great pain" and nearing death.

In an interview on BBC's 5Live, Mr Byrne said that "there's a great deal of rationality" around the idea of taking your own life if you are in severe pain.

The broadcaster, who turned 80 earlier this year, explained: “I think it is a choice that people can make. And I think that if you were facing with a long drawn-out terrible illness of great pain I think that is an option.”

While Mr Byrne admitted that the notion of assisted suicide is "against all the tenets of everything we’ve been taught" but he thinks that "more and more people are realising that’s the way out and maybe we should take it".

Listen to the clip from the interview on The Nolan Show earlier in the week: