Care organisations criticise rhetoric against ‘vulnerable children’ over wrong-way M9 crash

The Government’s “punitive rhetoric” in the aftermath of the fatal M9 crash ignored “the social realities facing Ireland’s most vulnerable children” and would “do nothing” to prevent similar tragedies, a coalition of care organisations has told Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan. Crava – the Children’s Residential and Aftercare Voluntary Association – said it was “deeply disappointed” by the political and social commentary after the incident, in which five young people died and three adults and a young child were seriously injured.Calls for increased penalties for such actions without any mention of early interventions and targeted supports to children in crisis “betrays a worrying detachment from the social realities facing Ireland’s most vulnerable children and their families”, said Crava chairman Terry Dignam in a letter to O’Callaghan, sent two weeks ago. Five teenagers were killed when the BMW in which they were travelling in the wrong direction on the M9 motorway was in head-on collision with a car travelling in the correct direction on August 16th last. READ MOREThe four occupants of the other car, who were en route to Dublin Airport from Carlow, sustained critical and serious injuries. Alma and Niamh Kinsella, in their 30s, their younger sister Ella Hendricken (20s) and their seven year-old nephew Yemi were treated in three Dublin hospitals. The five killed were Joe Carthy (15) and Jack Kennedy (17) from Athy, Co Kildare; Alex McCarthy (16) and Jeremey O’Brien (18), from Carlow, and Kamil Pustkowski (17), from Limerick. Kennedy was in the care of Tusla and had been in several care placements in the past year. Pustkowski had lived until last year with undiagnosed autism. His mother has described struggling to access services for him. Two of the five, though not in care, were known to Tusla. In the immediate aftermath, O’Callaghan described their actions as “outrageous, criminal behaviour”. An Garda Síochána would be given “whatever resources” needed to address dangerous and wrong-way driving, he said. Taoiseach Michael Martin said there should be “no tolerance” for anyone who drove on the wrong side of a motorway.Sinn Féin justice spokesman Matt Carthy said the crash highlighted “a very serious and growing threat to public safety that requires a co-ordinated response from across the justice system”. When a child or young person engaged in “high-risk” criminality, it was “rarely” a calculated or thought-through choice, but more usually “the symptomatic endpoint of ... systemic failure” by multiple State agencies, said Dignam’s letter. “Punitive rhetoric may satisfy an immediate political desire for a firm response, but it does nothing to alter the material realities for families at risk, nor will it prevent future tragedies on our roads or in our communities.”Penalties were “relevant”, but a sole focus on these ignored “the complex, intersecting social factors” including intergenerational poverty, addiction, inadequately resourced schools “and structural neglect that drive at-risk children toward delinquent and criminal behaviour”.Reaching “the most deeply alienated young people” should include dedicated, intensive outreach teams; trauma-informed crisis-intervention units comprising Garda youth diversion workers, social workers and adolescent mental health professionals, and intensive family and parent supports. “The M9 tragedy exposes systemic cracks where the most vulnerable, at-risk youth – particularly those in the alternative care system – are slipping through,” said the letter.Crava had received no response to the letter, said Dignam. The Department of Justice has been contacted for comment.