A seven-year-old boy is among four seriously injured people in hospital after a crash in County Kildare in which five teenagers were killed while driving the wrong way down a motorway.
Two women are in a critical condition, while another woman and the boy are in a serious condition after the head-on crash.
It’s believed the injured family – two women aged in their 30s and one in her 20s, and the young boy – were travelling to the airport to go on holiday.
Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin said his thoughts and prayers were with the injured and the death of the five teenage boys brought untold grief.
The crash happened between junction 3 and junction 4 of the M9 motorway, at Moone, at about 03:00 local time on Sunday.
Ireland’s Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan said on Monday that he condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the “reckless criminal behaviour”.
“I also want to emphasis that anyone who makes the decision to drive a vehicle deliberately the wrong way down a motorway is engaged in lethally dangerous behaviour and it must stop,” O’Callaghan said.
He said he spoke with the Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly on Monday and had emphasised to him that the gardaí “will have whatever resources they require from government in order to respond to this threat to public safety”.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA) said tougher laws are needed to deal with people driving in dangerous ways.
GRA’s James Morrisoe said people are playing “Russian roulette” with their own lives and lives of innocent members of the public through dangerous driving.
Martin added that it was 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”.
He said it was an “irresponsible and dangerous act, and it is shocking that in some cases it is being done for likes on social media”.
O’Callaghan said it was important to emphasis that social media companies “have a big responsibility in respect of this”.
“They emphasis in their codes of practice that they will not allow any postings that glorify criminal behaviour.
“Regrettably, that hasn’t been happening and social media companies need to step up to the mark as well in respect of their own responsibilities.”
Irish broadcaster RTE is reporting, external that the family is from the Carlow area.
It adds that several of the boys who died in the crash had “strong links” to Carlow town and to Athy in County Kildare.
