The Garda Ombudsman is to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of a man who was struck by a car in Co Galway in the early hours of yesterday.
The man, a pedestrian in his 50s, died when he was hit by a car driven by an off-duty garda. The incident happened at about 1.50am at Glebe, Oughterard.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene and his body was taken to University College Hospital, Galway for a postmortem examination.
The fatality was one of five separate road deaths yesterday.
The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) said the off-duty garda was travelling in his own vehicle.
The case was referred by Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy yesterday to the GSOC under Section 102 of the Garda Síochána Act, 2005. The Act requires all deaths or serious injuries in which members of the force are personally involved to be referred to the ombudsman.
A Garda press office spokesman said no charges had arisen from the incident. GSOC investigators visited the scene of the incident yesterday, and part of the road between Oughterard and Maam Cross remained closed for much of the afternoon.
Three of the five road fatalities yesterday morning were in Galway, and three of those killed were pedestrians.
Gary Keaveny (24), from Glenamaddy, Co Galway, was killed when his car left the road between Williamstown and Ballymoate, near Tuam. No one else was involved, said gardaí.
The third Galway fatality involved a Land Rover carrying three people which overturned on the road between Craughwell and Athenry at 8am yesterday. Two passengers were not seriously injured, but the driver, Barry Kelly, a former driver for the last mayor of Galway, Niall Ó Brolcháin, lost his life.
Cllr Ó Brolcháin expressed his condolences to Mr Kelly's family yesterday. He described Mr Kelly as a consummate professional and "a man of very many talents and great generosity of spirit".
At 3.30am yesterday a man said to be in his 20s was killed in Cork city when he was struck by a van at the Sarsfield Road roundabout. Gardaí at Togher station are seeking witnesses to the accident.
Shortly after 4am a young woman was killed in Co Donegal when she was struck by a car while walking home. The woman, named locally as Lisa McMenamin (19), was second-youngest of a family of five.
The incident happened at Dooballagh, about 5km (three miles) from Letterkenny on the Ballybofey Road. Gardaí said the driver of the car involved, a man in his 40s, stopped immediately.
A spokesman for the national safety council, Brian Farrell, said despite the deaths the number of people killed on the State's roads during July was well down on last year. In 2006 39 people were killed in road incidents in July, a figure which Mr Farrell said was about average for recent years.
He said about 29 people have been killed on the State's roads so far this month.