Three men were killed in a two-car collision in Carlow this morning bringing the number of people killed on the roads in the past 48 hours to eight.
A French man and two Ukrainians were in a German-registered Ford on the N9 between Carlow and Castledermot when it collided with another car at around 4am.
The dead men, all aged in their 20s, are believed to have been travelling to Kildare where they worked in the horse racing industry.
All three died at the scene. Another man in the car was seriously injured, as was the driver of the other car, and both were taken to St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny.
Gardaí appealed for a lorry driver who was at the scene to contact them.
Yesterday, two men died and another man was seriously injured in a road crash in Co Leitrim.
Damien Foley, of Main Street, Manorhamilton, and Ger Mayock, of Dromahair, Co Leitrim, died when their van crashed off the old Manorhamilton to Dromahair road in the early hours of the morning.
A third occupant of the vehicle is in a stable condition in Sligo General Hospital.
In Dublin, a woman (61) was killed when she was struck by a bus in Bluebell, west Dublin, yesterday.
Elsewhere, a man (19) died yesterday after the car in which he was travelling crashed into a ditch at Wellington Bridge in Wexford. He was named as Garry Sinnott, from Duncormack in Co Wexford.
To date this year, some 149 people have died on the State's roads in 124 separate collisions, according to Garda statistics. This is 19 more than died in the same period in 2005.