Gardaí ‘acted appropriately’ before fatal M9 crash, Fiosrú finds

THE gardaí who followed a BMW car before it crashed and killed five teenagers and seriously injured four others last month had “acted appropriately”, the garda watchdog, Fiosrú has found.

In one of the worst car crashes the country has ever seen, five teenagers were killed instantly when the BMW they were travelling in was going in the wrong direction on the M9 motorway on 16 August. Four people from the same family were seriously injured, some life-changing, when their Hyundai car was hit head on by the BMW.

Some of the teenagers were from Carlow town while the family members were originally from Bennekerry, with three of them living in Graiguecullen.

The teenagers were Alex McCarthy (16) and Jeremy O’Brien (17) from Carlow town; Jack Kennedy (17) and Joey Carthy (15) from Athy and Kamil Pustkowski (17) from Limerick.

The people injured were three sisters, Ella Hendricken with Niamh and Alma Kinsella, along with Alma’s young son, seven-year-old Yemi. The family were heading to the UK to attend a wedding when the accident occurred at around 3am near Moone.

Because the gardaí had pursued the car earlier that night and had tried to stop it from going onto the motorway, an investigation by Fiosrú had to be carried out. They have cleared gardaí of any possible wrongdoing and found that they had ‘acted appropriately’ that night.

‘Gardaí who followed a vehicle before its involvement in a fatal head-on collision on the M9 motorway in Co Kildare acted in accordance with the law as well as relevant Garda policies and procedures,’ Fiosrú said.

Fiosrú began its independent investigation into the incident on foot of a mandatory referral from gardaí on 16 August 2026.

Its report said: ‘Gardaí had been following the car on the N78 in Athy for a short period prior to it joining the M9 motorway against the direction of traffic, where it later collided with an oncoming vehicle.

‘Fiosrú’s investigation examined evidence related to the actions and decisions of gardaí during their interactions with the car, including the nature and extent of garda contact prior to the collision. The purpose of the investigation was to establish whether gardaí acted in accordance with the law and police policies and procedures.

‘During the course of Fiosrú’s investigation, investigators obtained and reviewed CCTV and radio transmissions and received a briefing from the Forensic Collision Investigator.

‘Fiosrú established that on the day of the fatal collision, gardaí had pursued a BMW car. Permission to continue the pursuit was granted by the Garda Control Room. After the BMW entered the M9 dual carriageway, the garda vehicle terminated its pursuit and the control room confirmed that the pursuit should not continue. Other garda units attempted to place a stopping device at an appropriate location, however the BMW undertook a number of U-turns, before fatally colliding with an oncoming car.

The garda referral to Fiosrú of the M9 incident is the sixth referral that the oversight body received between 2021 and 2026 that relate to garda interactions with vehicles being driven the wrong way on motorways and national roads.

The Police Ombudsman, Emily Logan, said: “Fiosrú’s investigation was independent of gardaí and aimed to understand events leading up to the collision. It found that gardaí acted appropriately, within the law, and in line with relevant policies and procedures as determined by the Garda Commissioner.

“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 gardaí who attended the scene.” In its own statement, An Garda Síochána welcomed the finding by Fiosrú and said that they are continuing to investigate all the circumstances of the fatal road traffic collision.

It said that they will ‘continue to provide any supports, as necessary, to all of our members who attended at that very difficult scene on the M9 on 16 August 2026’.

An Garda Síochána’s thoughts also remain with the four innocent persons injured in that collision.