Five teenagers dead in car crash after vehicle driven wrong way on motorway

Five male teenagers have died and four other people left seriously injured after a crash on a motorway in County Kildare, Irish police have said.

Two cars were in a head-on collision on the M9 between junctions 3 and 4 near Athy at around 3am on Sunday.

One of the vehicles was travelling in the wrong direction - southbound on the northbound carriageway of the motorway, according to police.

The occupants of the vehicle hit by the one travelling the wrong way are believed to have been heading to the UK on holiday.

Officers with the Gardai (the Irish police force) were told not to engage with the vehicle travelling the wrong way, which was allegedly stolen and had previously failed to stop, a police representative group said.

The bodies of the five teenage males were removed from the scene of the crash and taken to Naas General Hospital for post-mortem examinations, police said.

Four people remain in hospital with serious injuries.

'Standard practice not to chase stolen cars'

Garda Representative Association (GRA) vice-president John Joe O'Connell said the crash involved a BMW that had failed to stop for the Gardai and an instruction had been given not to engage with the vehicle.

"It would be standard practice, and the command and control centre would be dictating what happens in a live environment - but the members in the cars have to make a split-second decision," he told RTE's Morning Ireland radio programme.

Mr O'Connell said the GRA did not "know what the exact answer is" to address the problem of gangs "trying to outdo each other" in social media videos depicting interactions with Gardai, pursuits and wrong-way driving.

He said the people in the other car who were injured were a family travelling to Dublin Airport for a holiday. It is believed that they were making the journey to attend a family wedding in England.

Irish ministers question social media involvement

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said he was "shocked and saddened" at the crash, which he described as being the result of "an irresponsible and dangerous act".

He said: "This is the second appalling crash we've seen on our roads in a matter of days as a result of the reckless driving of a car on the wrong side of the motorway, endangering the lives of innocent road users."

The previous weekend, nine people were injured in a head-on collision on the M50 in Dublin with a car travelling in the wrong direction on the motorway.

Ireland's justice minister Jim O'Callaghan said social media companies are currently allowing content online that is "glorifying criminal behaviour".

This echoed comments made by Mr Martin earlier, who said that such incidents are, in some cases, "being done for likes" on social platforms.

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The four survivors in the car that had been travelling the right way on the motorway were all taken to hospital.

The female driver and frontseat passenger, who are both aged in their 30s, remain in a critical condition.

A female aged in her 20s and a boy, both passengers in the car, are in a serious condition.

The M9 from junction 3 to junction 4 northbound and southbound remains closed, and a forensic investigation is set to take place.

A referral has since been made to Fiosru, the Office of the Police Ombudsman.

Social media companies respond

Content depicting wrong-way driving and car thefts was visible on social media sites on Monday.

TikTok says it has removed all flagged content and banned accounts that violate its policies against criminal behaviour.

Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram, said it has policies to restrict users under 18 from seeing imagery depicting real-life dangerous driving likely to cause injury.

It said it also prohibits content promoting criminal or harmful activities such as high-risk viral challenges.

Snap, which operates Snapchat, has also been contacted for comment.

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