NICCC Calls for Compassion, Accountability and a National Prevention Strategy Following M9 Tragedy
Dublin’s North Inner City Community Coalition extends its deepest sympathy and solidarity to everyone affected by the devastating collision on the M9 near Moone, County Kildare, on Sunday, 16 August.
Our thoughts are first and foremost with the three sisters and seven-year-old boy who were travelling together when their car was struck. They have suffered serious and potentially life-changing injuries through no fault of their own. We offer them, their wider family and their communities our heartfelt support and hope for their recovery.
We also extend our sympathies to the families of the five young men who died. Five families have lost sons, brothers, grandchildren and loved ones in the most devastating circumstances. No family should have to experience such a loss.
We recognise the anger, fear and distress caused by what happened. Driving at speed in the wrong direction on a motorway placed innocent people in grave danger and caused catastrophic harm. Acknowledging the humanity of the young people who died does not minimise that harm, excuse dangerous behaviour or diminish the suffering of the injured family.
Accountability and compassion are not opposites. We must be capable of holding both.
A tragedy must not become an opportunity for dehumanisation
In the days since the collision, much of the public discussion has understandably focused on policing, penalties, dangerous driving and the influence of social media. These are important issues, and the circumstances surrounding the collision must be fully and independently investigated.
However, some of the public commentary has gone further, describing the young people who died as though their lives had no value and their deaths did not matter. That language is damaging. It deepens divisions, causes further pain to grieving families and makes it more difficult to have the serious conversation that is now required.
Young people are responsible for their actions, but they are also still developing. Adolescence is a period in which peer approval, belonging, identity and risk-taking can exercise a powerful influence. Social media can intensify those pressures by turning dangerous behaviour into content, status and recognition.
This does not remove personal responsibility. It tells us something important about how prevention must work.
If a young person can find recognition, excitement and belonging only through dangerous or criminal activity, then our responsibility as a society is not simply to condemn them after the harm has occurred. We must reach them earlier and offer credible alternatives: trusted adults, positive peer groups, meaningful opportunities, safe places, education, employment, creativity, sport and a genuine sense of belonging.
Punishment after a tragedy is not a prevention strategy
An Garda Síochána has an essential role in protecting the public, preventing crime and responding to dangerous driving. Gardaí and emergency personnel dealing with incidents of this nature are placed in extraordinarily difficult and traumatic circumstances.
But policing cannot carry this responsibility alone. The criminal justice system primarily responds after behaviour has escalated or harm has already occurred. It cannot, by itself, address the conditions that leave some young people disconnected from school, family support, employment, services and their communities.
Calls to criminalise more young people or rely principally on harsher punishment may satisfy an understandable demand that something be done, but they will not be enough to prevent the next tragedy. If criminalisation pushes young people further to the margins, hardens their identities and strengthens their attachment to harmful peer networks, it can make long-term prevention more difficult.
Accountability must be part of the response, but it must be constructive, proportionate and combined with intensive support and opportunities to change direction.
We know what prevention requires,
Community organisations, youth workers, families, schools, Gardaí and frontline services have decades of experience of responding to joyriding, dangerous driving, criminal exploitation and youth exclusion.
Previous successful responses were not based on one service or one intervention. They brought together youth work, education, family support, community development, local Gardaí, health services, training, employment and targeted engagement with the small number of young people at greatest risk.
Effective prevention means:
- Identifying and engaging young people before dangerous behaviour becomes entrenched.
- Providing intensive outreach for young people who will not engage with mainstream services.
- Ensuring youth and community services are available during evenings, weekends and other times when young people are most at risk.
- Supporting families without blaming or stigmatising them.
- Creating accessible pathways into education, training, employment, sport, arts and community leadership.
- Providing timely mental health, trauma and addiction supports.
- Supporting positive peer leadership and credible role models.
- Working directly with boys and young men around risk, identity, emotional wellbeing, masculinity and belonging.
- Holding social media companies accountable for systems that promote, reward or repeatedly circulate dangerous behaviour.
- Building genuine local partnerships between young people, families, communities, youth services, schools, Gardaí and statutory agencies.
The figures demonstrate the imbalance in how we currently use public resources.
Oberstown Children Detention Campus received a core allocation of more than €28.5 million in 2025 and had an average daily population of 39 young people. This equates to approximately €730,000 annually for each occupied detention place before capital expenditure is included.
By comparison, it has been estimated that supporting an early school leaver through a Community Training Centre, Youthreach or a comparable community-based programme can cost in the region of €5,000 per year. Youth projects have also previously estimated that general youth-service investment amounts to approximately €70K to €85K per young person each year.
Around 8% of young people in Ireland are not in education, employment or training. These young people are often referred to as NEETs, but they are not a single or uniform group. They include young people experiencing poverty, homelessness, disability, mental health difficulties, family disruption, trauma and exclusion from mainstream education. They require targeted and persistent engagement, not another label that defines them by what they are not doing.
Investment in youth work is not only socially necessary; it makes economic sense. An independent economic assessment undertaken by Indecon for the National Youth Council of Ireland found that, over a ten-year period, the economic benefits of youth work exceeded the cost to the State by a factor of approximately 2.2. In other words, every €1 invested in youth work was estimated to return approximately €2.20 in economic and social benefits.
These are not directly comparable services: Oberstown provides secure detention, care and education to children placed there by the courts. However, the enormous difference in cost illustrates a clear principle. Waiting until a young person reaches the most serious end of the criminal justice system is far more expensive than investing early in their education, family, community and future.
Yet youth and community projects in Dublin’s North Inner City continue to struggle for adequate and secure funding. Organisations doing essential preventive work must repeatedly fight to maintain services, retain experienced staff and keep their doors open. Too much funding is short-term, restricted to individual projects or dependent on repeated competitive applications.
This makes long-term planning almost impossible. It also consumes the time of youth and community workers who should be building relationships with young people and families, not constantly trying to secure enough funding for their services to survive.
Youth projects cannot be expected to prevent complex and serious harm while operating from one short-term funding cycle to the next. They need secure core funding, properly paid and supported staff, suitable premises and the resources to provide outreach and activities during evenings, weekends and other high-risk periods.
Short-term pilot projects and funding announced in the aftermath of a tragedy cannot replace properly resourced, long-term youth and community infrastructure.
Our call to Government
NICCC is calling on Government to establish a coordinated national prevention response, supported at the highest level and developed in partnership with affected communities.
This response should include:
- An immediate, multi-agency intervention in areas where organised car theft, dangerous driving and related online activity are known to be increasing.
- Sustained and significantly increased investment in detached youth work, intensive outreach, Garda Youth Diversion Projects, family support and community development.
- Secure multi-annual core funding for existing youth and community projects, ending the cycle in which essential local services must repeatedly fight for short-term funding simply to remain open.
- Additional evening, late-night and weekend youth provision, designed with young people and based on identified local need.
- Targeted education, training, mentoring and employment pathways for young people who are no longer connected to school or mainstream services.
- A national response to the online promotion and circulation of dangerous driving content, with clear responsibilities for social media companies.
- Structured local partnerships through which community organisations, frontline workers, Gardaí and statutory agencies can identify risks early and coordinate practical interventions.
- Long-term action on the poverty, inequality, trauma, housing insecurity and exclusion that increase vulnerability and weaken young people’s connection to society.
Choose prevention, care and belonging
There is no contradiction between standing unequivocally with the innocent family who suffered devastating harm, recognising the seriousness of the behaviour involved and refusing to celebrate or excuse it, while also grieving the deaths of five young people and asking how this could have been prevented.
The measure of our response cannot be how strongly we condemn young people after they have died. It must be whether we are prepared to reach other young people before lives are destroyed.
Every young person needs boundaries and accountability. They also need safety, opportunity, connection and hope. They need to know that they matter and that there is a place for them within their community.
This tragedy must become a catalyst for prevention, not a source of further division. Our response should be firm where public safety demands it, compassionate towards every family affected and determined to build communities in which young people can find identity, purpose and belonging without placing themselves or others in danger.
About Dublin’s North Inner City Community Coalition
Dublin’s North Inner City Community Coalition provides an inclusive forum for community stakeholders across the North Inner City. It develops and advocates for policies and programmes that support the social, economic and community development of the area, with a focus on addressing poverty and inequality and strengthening education, employment, childcare, youth provision, community safety and the local environment.
Ends
For further information contact: Andy O’Hara or Sarah Kelleher Dublin’s North Inner City Community Coalition
Andy O Hara – andy@myuisce.org Phone: 0838261930
Sarah Kellegher – sarah.kelleher@lycs.ie Phone: 087 236 7009