President of Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) Annie Doona has said counselling services and space for students to gather will be made available in the college for friends of Olivia Burke (21), one of the young people killed tragically in California, on Tuesday.
Dr Doona said Ms Burke, a third-year student in entrepreneurship and management had been to Canada last year and had chosen to go to the US this summer. Dr Doona said she understood Ms Burke had been working in a restaurant in Ireland before going to the US and taking a job in a sushi restaurant. The college understood Ms Burke had been doing very well and enjoying herself, Dr Doona said.
“It is a very sad day here for her fellow students and the staff,” Dr Doona said. About 30 students from the college go to the US each year on J-1 visas and it was a “good opportunity for them them to get life skills and to network and to have a bit of fun”.
“What we do know is that she was working in a restaurant in Ireland before she went and our understanding is that she found a job in a sushi restaurant in California.
“She was sharing a flat, tragically with a number of other people who were killed, Eimear and Ashley. They were all working, they were all part of that social group”.
“South County Dublin is quite a close community they would have gone to local schools, they have all known each other and I think there was a group already in Berkeley who all knew each other and who had socialised over here, and who would have carried on that relationship while they were there.
“So our understanding is that she had been working in Canada last year, had chosen to go to California this year, was working in a restaurant and was doing very well and enjoying herself and making great friends”.
Dr Doona said the atmosphere at the college was “terribly sad”.
“It is very dim and very quiet here on the campus this morning. We have put in supports for the students, and we have counsellors on-site, we have our nurse on-site, although the students are finished we think some of them will come here: they will want to meet, they will want to hug, they will want to talk about Olivia. They will now want to spend a bit of time just thinking about her”.
Speaking on RTÉ radio Dr Doona also said staff who taught Ms Burke for the last three years were also in shock as they would have been expecting to see her back in Dún Laoghaire in September. She said the deaths were a “terrible tragedy for Ireland, for the higher education sector and for the families involved”.
