The deaths of two teenage brothers and a friend when a stolen car they were travelling in plunged into Dublin's Grand Canal provided "a dreadful lesson for young people", a local councillor has said.
Ms Therese Ridge, who is also a Fine Gael senator, said the community in Clondalkin, Dublin, where the young men were from, was "completely shocked" by the triple tragedy.
A fourth man in the car, aged 21, managed to escape through the sun-roof with the help of firemen after the vehicle skidded for 60 yards before striking Suir Bridge at Davitt Road, Inchicore, and falling into the canal. He remained in a stable condition in St James's Hospital last night.
The trio are among eight people killed in road traffic accidents on the island in the first two days of the new year. A further seven people were slightly injured yesterday in a two-car crash near Loughrea, Co Donegal, shortly before 4 p.m.
The three dead youths, who were travelling in a Ford Escort XR3, were named as Emmet Flynn (17) and his brother Alan (15), from Rockfield Drive, and Christopher McHugh (21), from Oak Downs, Greenpark. The crash happened at about 5.15 a.m. on Saturday. Five other people, including a husband and wife from Co Tipperary, died in road traffic accidents in the North and the South over the weekend. The married couple, from Raheen, Golden, were killed when their car collided with another car at Bansha, outside Tipperary, around 11 p.m. on Saturday. The couple were named as Mr John McGrath (45), who died upon arrival at hospital, and Ms Geraldine McGrath (44), who died early yesterday.
In Co Donegal, Mr Anthony Quill (50), who was home on holiday from Clydebank, Scotland, died after his car crashed on the Inishowen Peninsula on Saturday afternoon.
In Co Galway, a man died after the car he was driving hit a pillar at Ballindooly on the GalwayHeadford Road before 5.30 a.m. on Saturday. Mr Derek Bruton (31), originally from Cork, was living at Cnoc-AnOir Estate, Galway.
A 17-year-old girl became the first road fatality of the year in the North. Ms Nicola Russell, from Harcourt Drive in north Belfast, was a passenger in a car that crashed while being pursued by police on the main Newcastle to Kilkeel road in Co Down at 2.20 a.m. on Saturday. The 25-year-old male driver was charged with causing death through dangerous driving.
In Cork, two women, both in their 50s, died in a head-on collision near Coachford village at 4 p.m. on New Year's Eve. Ms Mary Kelleher, a mother-of-three from Dunmanway, and her friend, Ms Mary O'Leary, from Kilmichael, died instantly.
Their deaths brought to 414 the total number of road fatalities in the Republic for 1999, according to provisional Garda figures.