THE GARDA Ombudsman Commission has appealed for motorists who may have witnessed a road traffic incident in which a seven-year-old boy was killed near Finglas village, Dublin, to come forward.
Dean Ward, from Finglas west, was crossing the road with his 10-year-old brother when he was struck by an unmarked Garda car on the N2 near the junction with the Clearwater shopping centre and the Glenhill housing estate, at about 11am on Saturday.
The child was taken to Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin city centre, where he was later pronounced dead.
Three plainclothes gardaí were in the unmarked car when it hit the child. Under Section 102 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, the Garda Commissioner must refer a case to the ombudsman commission when an officer is involved in an incident where serious injury or death occurs.
The two boys were crossing from the Clearwater shopping centre side of the road and safely reached the grassed meridian of the dual carriageway.
However, it appears that when they tried to run from the meridian across the second carriageway the seven year old ran into the path of oncoming traffic and was struck by the Garda car.
An ombudsman commission spokesman said: "It is a very busy junction and there were quite a few people around. We tried to take as many statements as possible but there are a lot of potential witnesses who are motorists, who drove on."
He said the ombudsman commission was appealing to those motorists who witnessed the incident to contact them at 1890-600 800.
A section of the N2 remained sealed off for much of the day as Garda technical officers and members of the ombudsman commission examined the scene.
The report from crash scene investigators is not yet available.
At the scene local people expressed their shock at the crash. One woman said she had just crossed the junction four minutes earlier.
"We heard the little boy was with his brother when it happened," she said.
Another woman who was returning from Newry said, "there have been a number of accidents on the road. A few people have been killed."
