The fatal crash on the M9 in County Kildare, where a car travelling the wrong way collided with another vehicle, claimed the lives of five teenagers and left a child and three women seriously injured, has intensified scrutiny of online platforms that host videos of risky driving behaviour.
During the committee hearing, TikTok was repeatedly asked to provide a figure for how many times videos depicting wrong‑way driving had been viewed in Ireland, but the company’s global head of policy for trust and safety was unable to give a specific number, prompting Labour TD Alan Kelly to describe the lack of quantitative data as “deeply concerning”.
Google’s government affairs and public policy manager, Ryan Meade, said that fewer than ten Irish‑specific dangerous‑driving videos had been removed from YouTube, and fewer than ten channels were taken down between the start of July and the end of August.
Meta’s Irish public‑policy head, Dualta Ó Broin, reported that the company had removed two Ireland‑originated wrong‑way‑driving videos between 1 December and 5 September, age‑gated eight others, and taken down 127 items of “viral challenge” content related to dangerous driving, with three more restricted to users over 18.
TikTok disclosed that 42,000 pieces of content featuring dangerous activity or challenges were identified in the first half of the year, and that 99.6% of such videos were removed proactively before any user report, with 83.4% removed before they received any views and almost 90% taken down within 24 hours, but it declined to give a view count for the Irish videos.
Zachary Hecht, TikTok’s spokesperson, acknowledged that the platform uploads roughly 400,000 videos daily and that no moderation system is 100% effective, noting that the company is “constantly working” to improve its safeguards.
Committee members also questioned the competence of Ireland’s media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán (CnaM). Executive chairman Jeremy Godfrey said the regulator must follow legal processes before judging compliance, while TDs such as Peter “Chap” Cleere and Joanna Byrne expressed frustration that the regulator could not confidently affirm that tech firms were doing everything required to curb dangerous content.
The hearing underscored a “watershed moment” for Irish policy, with Kelly warning that the two‑billion‑euro annual safety budget allocated by TikTok is not being spent effectively and urging the country to take stronger action to protect road users.