Ireland wrong-way motorway crash kills five teenagers

Five teenage males were killed when a car travelling the wrong way on Ireland's M9 motorway collided head-on with another vehicle early Sunday, Irish police said.

The crash happened west of Dublin. Police said the vehicle carrying the teenagers was travelling southbound on the northbound carriageway when it struck another car. Four people in the second vehicle, including a child, were seriously injured.

Ireland's taoiseach, Micheal Martin, said Monday he was “shocked and saddened” and described the crash as the latest in a series of wrong-way motorway incidents.

“There can be no tolerance for this reckless behaviour that we have seen on our roads recently. It must stop,” Martin said.

Police chief Justin Kelly said the crash followed a similar collision on Dublin's M50 motorway a week earlier, involving a stolen vehicle carrying teenagers that was driven the wrong way and caused multiple serious injuries. He said reckless behaviour was “in some cases” being done for social media.

Irish police union leader John Joe O'Connell told public broadcaster RTE that different groups of youths were using social media to “outdo each other”, including by recording interactions with police and provoking pursuits.