M9 Joyriders: Is It Wrong to Mourn Those Who Caused the Crash? Episode 868

The horrific crash on the M9 has shocked the country and left two very different sets of families facing unimaginable consequences.

Five teenage boys died after the BMW they were travelling in was driven the wrong way along the M9 near Moone in Co Kildare and collided head on with a Hyundai carrying three women and a seven year old boy. Gardaí are continuing to investigate all of the circumstances surrounding the incident.

The innocent occupants of the Hyundai were sisters Alma Kinsella and Niamh Kinsella, both in their 30s, their younger sister Ella Hendricken, who is in her 20s, and Alma’s seven year old son. The family, from the Carlow area, had been travelling to Dublin Airport to attend a family wedding in England. Alma and Niamh were reported to be in critical condition, while Ella and the young boy were being treated for serious injuries.

In this episode, Niall opens the phone lines to listeners to discuss a difficult question that has emerged in the aftermath of the tragedy.

While there has understandably been enormous sympathy for the innocent family whose lives have been changed, there has also been anger at the reckless behaviour that led to the crash. Some people have gone further, arguing that the parents of young people involved in serious criminal behaviour should accept some responsibility, or even feel ashamed of what their children have done.

But is that fair?

The discussion takes an emotional turn after a listener contacts the programme with her own story.

Twenty years ago, her teenage son died after crashing a stolen car into another vehicle carrying a husband and wife. She says she has lived ever since with enormous sympathy and guilt over what happened to the innocent couple, but strongly rejects the suggestion that she was a bad parent.

She describes her son as a loving child who developed a passion for cars and mechanics, but says everything began to change in his early teenage years when he lost interest in school and started mixing with the wrong crowd. Gardaí began arriving at the family home, he got into trouble with the law and, despite repeated attempts by his mother and older siblings to steer him away from that lifestyle, his behaviour continued.

Her other two children never got into trouble, went on to build successful lives and careers, and she asks a question many parents will understand: if three children are raised in the same home by the same parents, but only one chooses a destructive path, can the parents really be blamed?

Niall asks callers where parental responsibility begins and where it ends.

Can loving and responsible parents raise a child who eventually becomes involved in theft, violence, joyriding or other serious criminal behaviour?

Should parents be held morally responsible when their teenage children repeatedly break the law?

Or does there come a point where a young person has to take responsibility for their own choices, regardless of how they were raised?

And perhaps the most difficult question of all: if your child caused terrible suffering to innocent people, could you still grieve for them, defend the way you raised them and love them despite what they had done?