A 22-year-old Dubliner who survived the balcony collapse in Berkeley, California, last summer has told a public hearing in Sacramento that it changed her life forever.

Aoife Beary broke down as she talked about her friends she had known since primary school who died in the balcony collapse on her 21st birthday.

They were Eimear Walsh, Olivia Burke, Niccolai Schuster, Eoghan Culligan and Lorcán Miller, and Ms Burke’s cousin Irish-American Ashley Donohoe.

After the accident, families of the victims learned that the balcony had been built by a firm that paid out $26.5 million in construction defect settlements that were never reported to the state license board.

Today Aoife Beary’s mother and Ashley Donohoe’s mother appealed to California lawmakers to pass proposed new legislation which would require greater transparency from the construction industry.