Family denies son was taking ecstasy for 4 years

A young man who died in Dublin at the weekend, apparently after taking half an ecstasy tablet, suffered from cardiac arrhythmia, a spokesperson for his family said last night. The family denied that he had been taking ecstasy for four years.

According to gardai, Mr Rory Kavanagh (26), from Taylor's Hill, Galway, but living at North Great George's Street, Dublin, died at about 1.30 a.m. on Sunday after taking half an ecstasy tablet. A friend who was with Mr Kavanagh and who shared the tablet suffered no ill effects.

The two young men had drunk about four pints of beer each and reportedly took the drug before entering the Irish Film Centre in Temple Bar for a late night show. Mr Kavanagh collapsed in the toilets and was taken to the Meath Hospital, where he died.

Mr Kavaagh's friend made a statement to gardai in which he said they had both been taking ecstasy for about four years. However, the spokesperson for Mr Kavanagh's parents said it was their understanding that the friend had stated that they had both taken soft drugs about four years ago when they were students.

Mr Kavanagh's parents, consultant orthodontist Dr Des Kavanagh and physiotherapist Mrs Mary Kavanagh, were told of their son's death by the gardai in Buncrana, Co Donegal, where they were spending the weekend.

Dr Joseph Tracey, director of the Poisons Information Centre at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, said that a case where two people split the same tablet and one died and the other did not illustrated the "idiosyncratic nature" of the drug. However, he emphasised that the cause of death in this case had not been confirmed.

Dr Tracey said: "We don't know who is going to get into trouble and we don't know what tablet is going to cause trouble. You can take it once a week for years with no ill effects and then suddenly get a bad reaction."

He said that a conservative estimate was that between 150,000 and 200,000 ecstasy tablets were being taken annually in Ireland, and five people had died in hospital from the drug since 1991. Given such a rate of mortality, ecstasy, if it was a prescribed drug, would be withdrawn.

The president of the UCD students' union, Mr Shane Fitzgerald, said yesterday that he still stood by his message to students that, "if they were going to take the drug, despite all the warnings as to its dangers, they should take half a tablet". He gave this advice last year in a leaflet issued to UCD students.