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CONCERN HAS BEEN flagged over the reality of touted plans to offer gardaí pursuit training by the end of this year.

The plans come in the wake of two serious collisions caused by young men driving the wrong way on the motorway. The most recent of these two crashes, which occurred at 3am on Sunday morning, led to the death of five young men in one car.

Three women and a young boy in the other car are in serious condition in hospital.

Sunday’s crash, which followed an earlier collision in which a car containing eight young men drove the wrong way on the motorway and collided with a car with a single driver, has led to calls for pursuit training for gardaí.

The BMW involved in Sunday’s incident had several interactions with gardaí and is understood to have accessed the M9 up to three times, driving the wrong way, to avoid gardaí.

Gardaí do not pursue cars driving the wrong way on the motorway for safety reasons. Many gardaí are not training

Kevin Bolger of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) today said he and the association welcome Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly’s plans for pursuit training for gardaí this year.

It comes after the Garda Representative Association called for “proper training” following the incident at the weekend.

However, Bolger said this commitment was something AGSI has been calling for since April.

“We were given assurances, but here we are in the midst of another tragedy where the promises are still coming. We’re not seeing any tangible actions,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

While they are glad to receive a public commitment, Bolger said he remains concerned about the ability to deliver on this within the confines of this year.

“The reality of it is we’re running [an EU] presidency at the moment. The latter half of this year is jam-packed with a visit from the US president, there’s the EPC meeting which is a lot of world leaders coming in November, so that’s September and November kind of under pressure.

“There are a lot of constant resourcing requirements in relation to policing as it is.”

Uncertainty also remains over the number of gardaí that will be trained, as Bolger pointed out there would need to be multiple members with training in each unit to make the policy worthwhile.

Bolger said it is his view that work should begin with the road policy units, who he claimed are depleted of resources.

“They will start from the ground up of making the roads safer because they will engage strongly on a permanent basis with all road users and try to change behaviours,” he said.

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