REPRESENTATIVES of the construction industry in California have withdrawn their opposition to proposed legislation requiring them to report previous convictions for defective work.
It comes as one of the survivors of the balcony collapse in Berkeley last summer which killed six students, five of them from Ireland, broke down in an emotional address to a California state committee.
Speaking in support of a change in the law, Dublin woman Aoife Beary told the hearing that her birthday would forever mark the anniversary of the death of her friends.
It was as the group were celebrating her 21st birthday last year that the tragedy struck.
Eimear Walsh, Olivia Burke, Niccolai Schuster, Eoghan Culligan and Lorcán Miller and Ms Burke's cousin Irish-American Ashley Donohoe all died in the balcony collapse on June 16th 2015.
In the aftermath of the incident, it emerged that the builder of the complex had paid $26.6 million in settlements relating to other cases of building defects.
The proposed legislation is to be voted on by the committee before progressing to a full assembly hearing at the end of August.
The families of those killed and injured in the balcony collapse, as well as the Irish Government, have stated their support for a change to the law.
A visibly upset Ms Beary told the hearing: "I miss my friends so much. I have known them since we started school together at four years of age. We had grown up together. And now my birthday will always be their anniversary."
Ms Beary described some of the injuries she had received as a result of the fall, including a traumatic brain injury and broken arms, hands and pelvis.
She said she had also undergone open heart surgery.
Jackie Donohoe, mother of Ashley who was killed in the tragedy, said: "Ashley will never get married. Her father will never walk her up the aisle and her cousin Olivia will never be her bridesmaid.
"Her father did carry her up the aisle; he carried her coffin up the aisle and her beloved friend and cousin Olivia did follow her."
She added: "If the Construction Board had been aware of past issues with other balconies the deaths of these six kids could have been prevented."
