Holidays in Spain turn to tragedy

A young Irish woman has died and Garda Ombudsman Commissioner Kieran Fitzgerald is in a critical condition after separate holiday accidents in Spain.

Tributes were paid last night to the 21-year-old woman from Mayfield, on the northside of Cork city, who died after falling from a balcony on the holiday island of Tenerife on Wednesday.

Her distraught friends took to social media to pay tribute to her, with one describing her as a “gorgeous young girl with a contagious smile”, while another said she was a “sweet, beautiful and genuine girl”.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said it is providing consular assistance. At the request of the family, the Irish Examiner will not yet be naming or publishing a picture of the woman.

Meanwhile, Mr Fitzgerald is in a critical condition in hospital in La Coruna after falling onto rocks while on holiday in the north of the country. It’s understood he sailed with friends from Dublin to Galicia where he was to meet up with his wife Evelyn - the couple had planned to walk part of the famous Camino de Santiago. But soon after he arrived in Spain, he is said to have felt faint before sitting down on a low wall where he lost his balance and fell onto rocks damaging his spine. He had surgery at a La Coruna hospital, but it’s understood complications arose.

He has now been placed in a medically-induced coma; with family at his bedside.

A native of Glin in County Limerick, and a past award-winning RTÉ reporter, he served as head of communications and research for the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) from 2007 until he was appointed to GSOC in December 2011. He is a former producer, reporter, and researcher with RTÉ, having worked on popular television and radio programmes, including The Late Late Show, Prime Time, and Liveline.

He was named News and Current Affairs Journalist of the Year in 1999, and is a former chairman of the Dublin Broadcasting Branch of the National Union of Journalists.