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.

St Michael’s Boxing Club in Athy paid tribute to Joe Carthy, saying it was “deeply saddened” to learn of his death and said their thoughts were also with those who were seriously injured in the collision and their families.

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”.

He added that content showing dangerous driving is “clearly very damaging” and it is the responsibility of social media platforms to make sure they deal with the risks, to take it down and not to amplify it.

Fianna Fáil TD for Carlow-Kilkenny, John McGuinness, said media platforms need to be regulated “to ensure that they are not glorifying the actions of these individuals”.

He told BBC News NI that legislation is needed to “empower” gardaí, adding that “training is part of it to ensure that they can react constructively to this without jeopardising their own lives and, indeed, without causing a criminal offence on their side”.

“The country is shocked by what happened. The local community is certainly numbed by all of the deaths and, indeed, the fact that the incident happened the way that it did,” McGuinness said.

“There is a lot of anger because of the way this happened, because of the fact the car was driving down the wrong way on the motorway,” he said.

“People are looking now through that anger for action from the government to deal with these issues in a comprehensive way.”

The GRA, which supports rank and file garda officers, would support harsher sentences and driving bans for dangerous behaviour on the roads, according to McManus.

She told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme that officers responding to the Kildare incident deployed stinger devices in an attempt to stop the car, but it proceeded to travel towards the motorway.

“At that stage our members would not continue in that pursuit and the directions that were given by our command and control centre were to disengage,” she said.

“That would be the normal procedure for us that we do not engage with a car that has decided to take that sort of evasive action.”

“Our roads policing officers, whose speciality is obviously roads policing, do not have pursuit training,” she said.

She added that officers could face serious personal consequences if they took action without the appropriate training.

McManus also described the aftermath of the crash as “horrific” for the officers who attended the incident.

She said gardaí who witnessed the scene could require counselling for “months or years” to deal with the psychological impact of what they witnessed.

Brendan O’Connor, a Donegal garda and a former president of the GRA, said he believed the public would be “shocked” at the lack of pursuit training.

“The GRA have raised this for many, many years,” he told the BBC’s Nolan Show, adding that it was a “pressing police issue” and the “terrible events in Kildare” expose a “critical shortfall” in capacity.

“There has been massive investment in An Garda Síochána, contrary to what’s happening in Northern Ireland in relation to [police] funding, but police driver training has just seemed to be on the back foot and not prioritised,” he claimed.

An Garda Síochána has been contacted for comment.

As regards Northern Ireland, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said it adheres to the UK’s national pursuit policy.

It said initial phase pursuit training is open to all response officers in the PSNI, depending on the numbers of training opportunities available.

It added that for tactical phase pursuit, “national role profiles can dictate which officers attend, especially for officers in specialised units like roads policing, Armed Response Unit or the Headquarters Mobile Support Unit”.

The PSNI said that when training requests are submitted, “the aim is to ensure that the most appropriate officers receive this training, for example, a constable in a vehicle every day and therefore those most likely to be on the ground are generally selected so the benefit of the training is maximised”.

It added that “senior ranks are not ruled out of this training if it is suitable for the work they are doing within the service”.

Leo Lieghio, vice president of the Irish Road Victims Association, has called for greater urgency in tackling road deaths in Ireland.

Lieghio’s 16-year-old daughter, Marsia, was knocked down by a driver travelling at 50mph at a pedestrian crossing in Dublin in 2005. She died in hospital six days later.

He said the families of those killed and injured will be experiencing “torment”.

“Their lives have been turned upside down through no fault of their own. They will be going through hell.”

Lieghio added that there needs to be a stronger focus on consequences and early intervention, particularly for dangerous or criminal behaviour on the roads.

He called for a “reform programme” aimed at young people involved in criminal activity on the roads, alongside greater responsibility from drivers and the wider public.

There have been 123 road deaths in the Republic of Ireland so far in 2026, 18 more than at the same point in 2025., external

Lieghio said each death has consequences that extend far beyond the person who loses their life.

“I can imagine what’s going on in those hospitals now. I sat beside my daughter’s bed for six days, praying and hoping for something to change, but she couldn’t fight anymore,” he said.

The parish priest of Athy said his “heart, thoughts and prayers” are with all of those impacted by the “tragic situation”.

Fr Seamus McEntee said he travelled along the same stretch of the motorway just hours before the crash took place.

He said the people he has spoken to feel “a mixture of emotions” and are “carrying sadness, anger, compassion and grief”.