Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

For the families who have lost sons and daughters in Berkeley, there are no words. Words wash away like water. This tragedy brings us together, as families and as a community, both here and in America, to mourn the loss of these wonderful, beautiful young people. On behalf of the Government and the Labour Party, I express my deepest sympathy to the families and friends of Olivia Burke, Lorcán Miller, Eimear Walsh, Eoghan Culligan, Ashley Donohoe and Niccolai Schuster. We are also thinking of those students who were injured in Berkeley and their families and friends. We pray that they will recover from their injuries.

The consul general in San Francisco will provide every possible support and assistance for the families. As the Taoiseach said, the Government and all parties in the House stand ready to assist in any way we can. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Charles Flanagan; the Minister of State, Deputy Sean Sherlock; our ambassador in the United States, H.E. Anne Anderson, and the consular staff are doing everything to put dedicated services in place which may be of some assistance to the families and friends of the deceased and injured at this difficult time.

I still recall the excitement of travelling to the United States for the summer as a student with a J1 visa. I know what the experience is meant to be and so many people who have had it, including family members, relatives and friends. Such a trip is meant to be a rite of passage, an opportunity to gain valuable life and cultural experience in a country, the United States, that is dear to all our hearts. For a lot of young people, it is a summer of love and fun. When we look at the faces of the deceased in the snapshots on social media and in the newspapers, it brings home to everybody what those days are meant to be.

Today six families are heartbroken, their children wrenched away from them in the most dreadful of circumstances. They all received that terrible telephone call during the night or day when, presumably, just before their children had been texting to say how well they and their friends were getting on. Since learning about what happened, I cannot help but think of the W. B. Yeats poem which reflects on old age and begins as follows:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep

It is the utmost tragedy that six young people's lives have been lost when their eyes, as we see from the photographs, were still soft and their promise so great. We will do whatever we can to support their families in these circumstances.

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