TWO IRISH tourists, 28-year-old Mary Claire Collins from Athy, Co Kildare, and 27-year-old Elizabeth Ann Gubbins from Lisnagry, Co Limerick, were killed in a hit-and-run incident in the centre of Rome in the early hours of yesterday.
The two women were on their way back to their hotel after a night out. They were killed at a pedestrian crossing just across the river Tiber from Castel sant'Angelo, in the heart of historic Rome.
Witnesses to the accident reported that a Class B Mercedes hit both women at high speed as they crossed the road, dragging both bodies for up to 50 metres. The driver of the car failed to stop.
Soon afterwards, however, a man was apprehended in connection with the fatalities after he crashed into a traffic sign and then into some parked cars two kilometres further upriver from where the women were killed.
The man was put under house arrest on charges of manslaughter and drunken driving as well as failure to stop and offer assistance.
Unconfirmed reports suggested that the man was intoxicated at the time of the incidents and that a subsequent breathalyser test revealed his blood alcohol content to be four-and-a-half times above the Italian legal limit.
Furthermore, it was reported that traffic police had requested the man undergo a drugs test but that he had refused, as is his legal entitlement.
If medical reports confirm that he was over the legal alcohol limit, he may be imprisoned until such time as his case comes before a judge.
A film clip appeared on a number of Roman websites yesterday showing the arrested man at the wheel of a car at some date in the past.
In the clip, apparently filmed from a camera placed on the car dashboard, the man is seen to fool around, at one point taking his hands off the steering wheel and making a "look-no-hands" gesture as he drives along.
Yesterday's fatalities prompted condemnation of the driver by the centre-left candidate for prime minister and former mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni.
Mr Veltroni declared: "It is unacceptable that a guy who gets off on being the funny man at the wheel of a car is put under house arrest.
"Last night in Rome, a young man killed two girls at a pedestrian crossing. He didn't stop, but he was stopped a couple of kilometres down the road.
"He who makes a mistake, should pay for it. These daughters from a faraway country were killed by someone who fooled around in a car.
"I believe in guaranteeing legal rights but I'm on the side of the weak, of those who have suffered from violence."
Hit-and-run incidents have become a depressingly familiar reality in recent times in Italy whilst a relatively high number of pedestrians die annually on Italian roads.
The arrested man's father, a retired police officer, last night expressed his distress prompted by the incident saying: "I don't know how this happened. This is a tragedy and the only certain thing is that two girls, of the same age as my son, are now dead. I want to know exactly what happened."
He said that people had said his son had kept going without stopping, "but I have just heard an American tourist on TV say that he stopped, got out of the car and, when he realised what had happened, then he took off.
"Perhaps, he got into a panic, he was frightened, I don't know but this last witness give me some heart even if I and my wife, we're both destroyed by this. The fact is two girls are dead."