Five teenagers have died after a stolen BMW drove the wrong way down the M9 motorway in County Kildare and collided head-on with a family car heading to Dublin Airport, following the early Sunday crash that left four others seriously injured.
Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly described the collision between junctions 3 and 4 as horrific. Taoiseach Micheál Martin condemned the incident as an irresponsible and dangerous act, saying there could be no tolerance for reckless driving done for likes on social media. Kelly warned against wrong-way driving pursued for online attention, while the Garda Representative Association noted that groups of young men share videos of police encounters on social media.
The crash follows a separate wrong-way collision on the M50 in Dublin the previous weekend that injured nine people. Father Tom Little has been comforting grieving relatives, and local schools are preparing psychological support for students.