Police in Western Australia say that they are investigating whether alcohol may have played a part in a car crash in Perth on Wednesday which killed a young Irishman and injured seven other people, five of them from Ireland.
Six Irish tourists and a 19-year-old British woman were travelling in a Toyota Corolla on a road north-east of Perth when the driver apparently lost control of the vehicle.
Insp John Gibson, of the Western Australia police, said it appeared that the driver of the car lost control on a bend at about 11.10pm.
The car jumped a median strip, flipped on to its roof and crossed to the wrong side of the road, where it collided with a car being driven by a 63-year-old woman.
The Corolla's front-seat passenger, a 20-year-old Irishman who was living in the Perth suburb of Bedford, died at the scene.
An Irishwoman, also aged 20, suffered severe head injuries and remains in a critical condition in the Royal Perth Hospital.
A fleet of five ambulances took the injured to two local hospitals.
A police spokesman said that they were investigating whether alcohol had played a part in the incident, which occurred at Broun Street, Bedford.
The group travelling in the Corolla are believed to have spent several hours at the Queen Hotel in Perth on Wednesday night, a police spokesman said.
Ireland's honorary consul in Perth was assisting the victims, the Department of Foreign Affairs said. Officials from the Irish embassy in Canberra travelled to Western Australia yesterday to help.
The 63-year-old woman driver of the other car involved in the incident received injuries which are not thought to be life-threatening.