Five teenage boys died in the head-on collision<\/a> on the motorway on 16 August.<\/p>\nAs part of its investigation into the incident, Fiosr\u00fa said garda\u00ed had been following the car on the N78 in Athy, Co Kildare, for a short period before it joined the M9 against the direction of traffic.<\/p>\n
The car then collided with an oncoming vehicle.<\/p>\n
Four family members in the second car – three women aged in their 20s and 30s and a seven-year-old boy – were seriously injured in the crash and are continuing their recoveries.<\/p>\n
Fiosr\u00fa established that garda\u00ed had pursued a BMW car and permission to continue the pursuit was granted by the garda control room.<\/p>\n
Other garda units also attempted to place a stopping device at an appropriate location, Fiosr\u00fa said.<\/p>\n
However, the BMW undertook a number of u-turns, before fatally colliding with an oncoming car, the investigation found.<\/p>\n
CCTV and radio transmissions were obtained and used as part of the investigation as was a briefing from the forensic collision investigator.<\/p>\n
Fiosr\u00fa concluded that garda\u00ed involved in the pursuit acted in accordance with the law as well as relevant garda policies and procedures.<\/p>\n
The investigation marked the sixth referral to the police ombudsman between 2021 and 2026 relating to garda interactions with vehicles being driven the wrong way on motorways and national roads.<\/p>\n
Police Ombudsman Emily Logan said that it is mandatory for garda\u00ed to refer fatal incidents involving contact with garda\u00ed to the office.<\/p>\n
“Our role is to establish and examine the circumstances of what happened. Fiosr\u00fa’s independent investigations into referrals of death or serious harm form an important element in the protection of fundamental and human rights in the State,” Ms Logan said.<\/p>\n
“Fiosr\u00fa\u2019s investigation was independent of garda\u00ed and aimed to understand events leading up to the collision.<\/p>\n
“It found that garda\u00ed acted appropriately, within the law, and in line with relevant policies and procedures as determined by the Garda Commissioner.<\/p>\n
“Every death on our roads brings untold grief to families and communities. My thoughts are with family and friends and all those affected by this devastating incident, including the garda\u00ed who attended the scene.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed “acted appropriately” during their pursuit of a vehicle prior to the fatal crash involving a car driving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-628482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}