LAST UPDATE | 14 mins ago

THE TEENAGE BOYS WHO died in the M9 crash have been named locally this afternoon.

The five, who died in a BMW while it was being driven the wrong way on the motorway near Athy are: Joey Carthy, Jack Kennedy from Athy, Co Kildare, Alex McCarthy and his cousin Jeremy O’Brien, both from Carlow and Kamil Pustkowski who is understood to be from Limerick. 

Post mortems will be carried out on the remains in the coming days while family liaison officers are helping the families ahead of funerals. 

The first death notice has been released on RIP.ie for Joey Carthy. The short entry does not have funeral but said: “Deeply regretted by his loving parents William and Gemma, brothers John, Willie and Ned, sisters Margarita and Mary Doll, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and the members of St. Michael’s Boxing Club, Athy.”

Meanwhile the Garda Representative Association (GRA) 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.

It is understood that the second car was on its way to Dublin Airport.

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.”

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.

‘Bewildered by the terrible tragedy’

Father Tom Little, from the parish of Askea in Carlow, told RTÉ’s News at One that he has been in contact with some of the families involved.

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Little said the families are “just heartbroken”.

He said there is an “atmosphere of sadness and disbelief” and that the “community is just numbed in many ways by what has happened.”

However, he added that there is “hope for those that have been hurt”.

“It makes us realise, too, the danger of the roads and the need to be careful.”

Elsewhere, parish priest in Athy and Moone, Fr Seamus McEntee, told The Journal that the local community is “bewildered by the tragedy”. 

McEntee said he spoke to two priests in the diocese in the hours following the crash and that the “first they heard about it was people talking at Mass about what had happened”.

“All we’re doing is just being available, offering prayers at all the Masses for those who’ve died, their families, and especially those who have been injured and are in hospital at the moment.

“And we’re praying, of course, for the first responders, because it’s a tragedy coming upon a horrific scene.”

It’s understood that the people travelling in the second car, a Hyundai, involved in the collision were on their way to the airport and McEntee said he will be especially thinking of them when he goes to the airport himself tomorrow.

“It’ll be poignant in my mind when I go there, that there’s people who had packed and were on their way.”