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THE GARDA REPRESENTATIVE Association has called for “proper training” after a collision involving a car driving in the wrong direction which killed five people.

The fatal two-vehicle collision happened in the early hours of Sunday morning at Junction 3 of the M9 northbound at Moone, Co Kildare.

Five teenage boys in the vehicle that was driving the wrong way were killed.

It is understood that at least one person was ejected from the car and found some distance from the crash site.

Four people in the other car, a Hyundai, including a 7-year-old boy, were taken to hospital and are in conditions ranging from serious to critical.

John Joe O’Connell, vice president of the GRA, told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the vehicle which was driving in the wrong direction was stolen, and that it drove the wrong way down in an attempt to evade gardaí.

O’Connell said the vehicle had failed to stop for gardaí earlier in the night and that it is standard practice for garda members to stand down a pursuit when a vehicle drives the wrong way.

“There are different levels of driver training available to gardaí,” said O’Connell, “but not one of our members are pursuit trained.

“We’re looking for a proper training framework so our members can deal with non-compliant stops, we’ve nobody trained in a non-compliant stop.”

While O’Connell said there are a “huge” number of garda drivers trained in CPD1 – the lowest level of driver training – he added that they “cannot, as per the policy of that driver training, activate blue lights and sirens”.

O’Connell said gardaí have been dealing with incidents involving cars driving in the wrong direction in an attempt to evade gardaí since around 2021.

He added that “this isn’t news to us” and that it is “something we’ve been dealing with since 2021”.

“There’s been copycat incidents since then of cars trying to evade gardaí going the wrong way down motorways and dual carriageways,” said O’Connell.

“From our perspective, on how do we deal with this, I don’t know what the exact answer is, but there’s not one garda member trained in pursuit, never mind in dealing with cars going down the wrong way.”

He added: “And when our members do try and intercept these vehicles committing criminal offences and dangerous driving, there are internal sanctions, discipline, and even possibly our members find themselves before the courts with criminal offences.”

He noted that there was a garda ramming incident in Dublin over the weekend, and a group of eight men were in a vehicle involved head-on collision on the M50 the weekend previous.

O’Connell also referenced the “Lucky Dip gang”, which The Journal has reported on.

“We have numerous gangs of young teenage boys and young men trying to out do each other and put up social media videos of their interactions with gardaí, engaging in a pursuit and then heading the wrong way down a dual carriageway or a motorway.

“These kids are out playing Russian roulette with their lives and everyone else’s lives.

“I seriously hope that anyone who’s heard of what happened over the weekend, that they would sit down with their teenage sons and speak to them about the realities of what happens if you want to get behind the wheel of a stolen car.”

O’Connell’s remarks come as Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly acknowledged that gardaí are being put in a “really challenging situation” in responding to stolen cars being driven the wrong way against oncoming traffic.

“What makes this reckless behaviour even more appalling is that in some cases it is being done for social media likes regardless of the potentially devastating impact it might have on innocent people and themselves,” Kelly said yesterday.

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