Dr Maeve Pomeroy's stark warning comes just days after two young Irish men lost their lives in separate drowning accidents in Spain.

Pomeroy's 24-year-old son, Daniel O'Callaghan, who managed a shop in Dublin's Ilac Centre, was attacked on the first night of a week-long holiday with three friends in Playa del Ingles, Gran Canaria in 2003.

He was found unconscious with serious head injuries in a laneway in the resort and died two weeks later in hospital.

His family are upset about the way the Spanish police handled the case and are currently taking their case to the the European Court of Human Rights.

Speaking to the Sunday Tribune this weekend, Pomeroy said, "There are major inconsistencies in Europe at the minute where you have EU laws ensuring health and safety regulations being implemented in the workplace.

However, when young people go on holidays to these resorts, there are negligible or no safety standards for the young tourist.

"Young people, like my late son, are looked upon as expendable commodoties in a lot of these resorts."

Last Sunday, 23-year-old Brendan O'Reilly from Co Monaghan became the fifth young Irishman to lose his life while holidaying in the Playa del Ingles resort in the last three years.

Three of these men drowned in swimming pools, while John Michael Daly from Cork died when he fell from a fourth-floor balcony in 2002.

The exact circumstances of Daniel O'Callaghan's death in 2003 have never been established.

O'Callaghan's mother Maeve, who is a leading cancer specialist, said: "We need better standards of safety, security and policing in Spanish tourist resorts. Most people do not realise how few rights they have as EU citizens until they find themselves in a situation like we found ourselves after Daniel's death.

There needs to be standardisation of support for families and victims when a crisis occurs in Spain."

O'Callaghan's parents have been waiting for over a year to find out if their case can be heard by the European Court of Human Rights, under a law that states an unexplained death should be effectively investigated.

"Spanish policing does not seem to be consistent with modern policing practices across the world. While I do not know all the details of this week's deaths, I can say that a common theme in all of the tragedies in Spain is the authorities' delay in responding to, or failure to respond to, the tragedy immediately, " said Pomeroy.

She has also warned the thousands of young Irish holidaymakers making their way to Europe's hotspots to be extremely cautious, as many of these places are not what they seem in travel brochures.

"In our attempts to find out what happened to Daniel, we have visited Playa del Ingles a number of times. We have walked around the resort between 3am and 4am and it is a completely different place at nightime.

There are a lot of prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers around at that time and the place seems rife with all sorts of organised crime."

Meanwhile, the body of young Monaghan man Brendan O'Reilly is expected to return to Ireland today for burial on Tuesday morning.

O'Reilly got into difficulties last Sunday evening in a swimming pool at the Green Gardens complex in Playa del Ingles.

His friends, John Duffy (24) and Glen Comiskey (25), desperately attempted to revive him when he was pulled from the pool and local medics carried out CPR, but their attempts were in vain and he was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.

The pool where the young GAA star drowned is the same pool where 19-year-old Michael Clancy from Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, died two years ago.

Michael, who was not a swimmer, drowned after diving into the pool to save a friend who had got into difficulties in the water.

Elsewhere in Spain, a nephew of the minister for defence Willie O'Dea died in a drowning accident while holidaying in Ibiza.

Twenty-one-year-old Basil Bourke died while holidaying with five friends on the popular tourist island in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

From Hospital, Co Limerick, he was the only son of O'Dea's sister Mary Bourke and was a student at Limerick Institute of Technology.

Bourke is understood to have been at a disco on a boat when he fell into the water. No foul play was suspected to have been involved in his death.

As hundreds more young Irish people pack their bags this weekend to fly off for a sun holiday in Spain they should be aware of the dangers that lurk in Spanish holiday resorts.