The families of two of the six students who died in the Berkeley balcony collapse have vowed to fight to ensure similar accidents never happen again.
As the first four bodies of the Irish students arrived back home on Sunday morning, the families of Ashley Donohoe, a US-Irish citizen from Rohnert Park, California, and Olivia Burke, her first cousin from Dublin, said their children died through no fault of their own.
Last week there was outrage in Ireland over a New York Times article that highlighted the drunken antics of Irish students on the west coast of the US just hours after the six young people fell to their deaths outside the Berkeley apartment complex.
The Donohoe and Burke families said: “The family want everyone to know and understand that Ashley and Olivia were two intelligent, talented and hardworking women. They had bright futures ahead of them.
“We will fight to make changes so that no family will ever have to go through what we have been through for the past five days which has changed our lives for ever.
“Our daughters and all the other students were responsible young adults who were celebrating their friend’s 21st birthday in what they felt was a safe environment. Unfortunately that turned to tragedy through no fault of their own.”
Families of four of the dead, Eoghan Culligan, Lorcán Miller, Niccolai Schuster and Eimear Walsh, issued a statement on Saturday night thanking everyone in the US and Ireland for their sympathy and support and asking for their privacy to be respected.
Before leaving San Francisco the families said: “Our children were extraordinarily blessed in their friends and we are enormously proud of them. As we leave Berkeley and return home to Ireland with our beloved sons and daughters we would like to thank everyone in America and Ireland for their sympathy and support, which has been a tremendous comfort to us at this tragic time.”
The bodies of the four students are now in Dublin after the plane taking their remains home to Ireland landed around 11.15am on Sunday. The relatives of Olivia Burke are flying back to Ireland later on Sunday.
The inquiry into the balcony collapse is focusing on rain damage and dry rot as possible causes.
