Threat of wrong-way driving incident 'presents immediate and catastrophic risk'

Assistant commissioner for roads policing Denis Ferry will on Wednesday tell the Oireachtas Transport Committee there is 'no single measure which can remove the risk created by an individual who decides to drive dangerously'

Committee will focus specifically on a recent spate of wrong-way incidents on motorways, which saw the deaths of five people, with 13 injured in less than a week in August.

Gardaí are to reassure drivers Ireland’s motorway network is “safe”, but acknowledge the threat of a wrong-way driving incident “presents an immediate and catastrophic risk”.

Assistant commissioner for roads policing Denis Ferry will on Wednesday tell the Oireachtas Transport Committee gardaí have a “range of options” available to them to respond to dangerous driving incidents to “bring an incident to a safe conclusion”.

However, he is also expected to acknowledge there is “no single measure which can remove the risk created by an individual who decides to drive dangerously”.

The committee will focus specifically on a recent spate of wrong-way incidents on motorways, which saw the deaths of five people, with 13 injured in less than a week in August.

On August 9, a stolen car carrying eight teenagers hit another vehicle head-on after driving the wrong way on an off ramp of the M50 in Dublin.

On August 16, all five teenagers in a car driven the wrong way down the M9 in Kildare were killed, with four family members in the other car seriously injured.

Mr Ferry is expected to tell the committee the gardaí’s initial priority in any dangerous driving incident is “to prevent a pursuit from developing in the first place”.

Regarding Garda protocols which dictate that a vehicle speeding the wrong way on a motorway should not be followed, the assistant commissioner will tell the committee “there are, of course, occasions where pursuit may present more risk”.

He will say the Garda airborne unit plays a key role in such situations, monitoring a vehicle being driven dangerously while allowing ground units to be “strategically positioned” ahead of it.

To that end, he will note the gardaí’s four regional control rooms can use the air support unit’s information to deploy and coordinate resources to intercept a vehicle.

Mr Ferry will say 2,000 gardaí are now trained in the use of "stingers", devices used to stop vehicles in transit by blowing out their tyres.

In terms of pursuit driving, he will tell the committee such an action is “inherently high risk”.

“That risk extends to public safety, the safety of our members, and also the risk to those in the vehicle being pursued,” he will say.

At present, some 4,500 gardaí are trained to competency-based driving 2 standard (CBD2), meaning they can initially respond to emergency conditions using lights and sirens.

However, active pursuit training has not yet been deployed among the force, with the gardaí’s driving instructors currently two thirds of the way through “initial phase pursuit training”, with that course expected to be completed towards the end of 2026.

“Once those instructors are qualified, An Garda Síochána will be in a position to begin delivering that training to operational Garda members and to further build that capability during 2027,” Mr Ferry will tell the committee.

Last week, the committee heard from Transport Infrastructure Ireland there is no “silver bullet” available currently to alert drivers to incidents of wrong-way driving on the motorways.