Prosecutors in Northern Ireland have issued new guidelines on the laws covering assisted suicide.
The Director of Public Prosecutions will now consult the public about whether someone who assists with a suicide should be prosecuted or not.
The guidelines ease the risk of prosecution for people who assist someone to end their own lives.
The Public Prosecution Service said it would consider the position in Northern Ireland after the House of Lords ruled in July that the law in England must be clarified.
It followed a case taken by a multiple sclerosis sufferer from England, Debbie Purdy.
She sought clarification over whether her husband would face prosecution if he assisted her in ending her life by helping her to travel to a clinic in Switzerland, which organises assisted suicide for people suffering from a terminal illness.
Five law lords ruled that the director of public prosecutions must specify when a person might face prosecution.
The PPS cannot change the law as it stands, but determines whether a prosecution is in the public interest.
More than 100 people from the UK have travelled abroad since 1992 to end their lives using the Dignitas service in Switzerland.
In 2005, Martin Barry, a multiple sclerosis sufferer from Glasheen in Cork, used Dignitas to end his life.
He was accompanied by his friend Laura McDaid, from Coleraine. Both worked as journalists in Dublin.
In Northern Ireland aiding or abetting suicide is an offence that carries a sentence of up to 14 years imprisonment.
