Overview
- A car drove the wrong way down the up ramp at Junction 12 on the M50 and struck another vehicle head-on in the early hours of Sunday, 9 August 2026.
- Nine people were taken to hospital, including eight male teenagers from the wrong-way vehicle and a man in his 20s who was driving the other car; one teenager remains in critical condition and the other driver is seriously injured.
- Garda Forensic Collision teams examined the scene and closed the M50 southbound between Junctions 12 and 11 with local diversions in place while investigators gathered physical evidence.
- Gardaí are asking motorists who were on the M50 between Junctions 14 and 11 between 5:00am and 5:30am to come forward and to provide any dash-cam footage that could help reconstruct the sequence of events.
- Fiosrú confirmed its on-call investigators attended the scene and has opened an independent investigation to establish whether any act or omission by gardaí contributed to the serious harm, a review that could inform criminal or policy outcomes and road-safety responses.