An investigation into the background of Sanjeev Chada has revealed his finances were in difficulties.
Gardaí believe the unemployed IT consultant may have suffered significant losses while dealing in shares online.
Sources familiar with the family say it was out of character for him to take his sons Ruairí (5) and Eoghan (10) from their family home on Sunday evening without returning.
The only contact Mr Chada made with his family from the time he was last seen leaving home in Ballinkillen near Bagenalstown on Sunday at 6.30pm before he was found in his crashed car near Westport, Co Mayo, on Monday at about 3.30pm with his dead sons in the boot was a phone call.
Message
The call, which resulted in a message being left on a mobile phone of a family member, gave rise to gardaí believing he had fallen into a deeply irrational state of mind and raised what sources described as "extreme concerns" for the safety of his two sons.
It has now emerged that Mr Chada, who shared a large house in Ballinkillen with his wife Kathleen and their two boys, was under severe financial pressure.
Left his home
Gardaí believe Mr Chada left his home on Sunday with his sons in the green Ford Focus family car and never made it to the Dome Bowling Centre in Carlow where he told his wife he was going.
Ms Chada reported her husband and sons missing at 1.30am on Monday after hours passed during which time she was unable to make contact with him. Because of the distressed phone call he later made and his recent financial losses, gardaí took the view Mr Chada was under extreme pressure and embarked on an intensive effort to find him and his sons, utilising the new Child Rescue Ireland alert system for the first time since its inception.
Injured
However, those efforts yielded nothing and Mr Chada was found injured in the driver's seat of his car just before 4pm on Monday having crashed into a wall on a stretch of road at Clooneen, Rossbeg, about 6½km outside Westport.
When gardaí arrived at the scene and checked the car as Mr Chada was treated, they discovered the bodies of Ruairí and Eoghan in the boot. They had been dead for some time and Mr Chada is believed to have been driving for several hours with the bodies in the boot.
When found in the car Mr Chada had a ligature around his neck and gardaí believe he was trying to take his own life by deliberately crashing in the wall at high speed.
However, he was wearing a seatbelt at the time and the car’s airbags activated resulting in him surviving without any serious injury.
Gardaí are hopeful that when they interview him at length he will be able to tell them where he and his sons were between leaving their home and the crash near Westport on Monday, and the circumstances in which his two sons died and their bodies were found in the boot of his car.
