Four men have been killed in separate road crashes overnight.
One of the victims, aged 38, died when he lost control of his car and crashed into a telegraph pole just before 1am today on the Rathmullen Road, in Drogheda, Co Louth.
Less than half an hour earlier a 36-year-old man was killed after the Volkswagen he was driving collided with a Nissan Sunny in the same county.
A youth aged 17 who was in the back of the second car was also injured, although not critically, in the crash on the N53 at Annavackey, Hackballscross, Dundalk.
Gardai said the driver and at least one other passenger in the Nissan left the scene immediately after the collision. At around the same time the driver of a car involved in a two-vehicle crash in Dublin had to be cut from the wreckage by firefighters.
The man, aged 37, was pronounced dead at Tallaght Hospital following the crash on the Belgard Road, Clondalkin.
Two women in the other car were treated for minor injuries. The spate of road deaths came after a man in his 80s died last night after being knocked down by a truck in Co Monaghan.
The pensioner was walking Main Street in Emyvale earlier in the afternoon when the accident happened.
The fatalities have brought the death toll roads this year to date to 163.