Officers told not to pursue car on wrong side of motorway, says police body

Gardaí (Irish police) were instructed to disengage from pursuing a car as it drove in the wrong direction on a motorway before a fatal crash, the Garda Representative Association has said.

Five teenagers were killed in the head-on crash on the M9 in County Kildare on Sunday morning.

Two women are in a critical condition, while another woman and a seven - year-old boy are in a serious condition.

Assistant General Secretary of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), Tara McManus, told the BBC that garda roads policing officers "do not have pursuit training".

McManus said the teenagers had been in the car for a number of hours before the collision and gardaí had attempted to interact with them and bring the vehicle to a stop on "several occasions".

She added that officers were given a command to "disengage" with the car after it took "evasive action".

According to the Irish Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan, the head of the gardaí said he would introduce pursuit training this year.

The crash happened on the M9 Northbound at Junction 3 at about 03:00 local time.

The five teenagers who died have been named locally as Joe Carthy from Athy, County Kildare, Alex McCarthy from Carlow, Kamil Pustkowski from Limerick, Jeremy O'Brien and Jack Kennedy, according to Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

The injured family - two women aged in their 30s and one in her 20s, and the young boy - are understood to be from Carlow.

It was the second crash within days involving a car being driven in the wrong direction on a motorway in the Republic of Ireland.

The taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin expressed concern that "in some cases it is being done for likes on social media".

On Tuesday, Ireland's media regulator Coimisiún na Meán said it has asked TikTok to outline how it has responded to risky and reckless driving content on its platform.

Its chairperson Jeremy Godfrey told RTÉ that Coimisiún na Meán will assess if TikTok is breach of its obligations , external and if so, it can take "enforcement action".