Ronan Keating slams gardai and calls for change after brother killed in crash

Irish Daily Mirror

15 hours ago

Boyzone star Ronan Keating has called for stronger sentencing for those convicted of road traffic offences following the death of his brother.
Ciaran Keating was killed in July 2023 in a head on collision after an Audi A3 driven by Dean Harte, 22, with an address at Mullingar Road, Tyrellspass, Co Westmeath veered onto the wrong side of the road in Mayo.
The 57-year-old died at the scene at Ballymiles between Swinford and Bohola. His wife Anne Marie sustained life threatening injuries, preventing her from going to his funeral.
In February 2025, the Keating family were left angry after Harte was handed a 17-month prison sentence suspended for two years, with Ronan criticising the 'broke justice system' in Ireland.
Speaking on Wednesday on RTÉ Radio 1 Drivetime, Ronan said tougher sentencing should be introduced. He said: 'A situation like this, how it can tear a family apart. I remember getting the call from my sister Linda, and to hear her voice on the phone, to hear her screams on the phone is something I can never forget.
'It will be forever etched in my brain, in my mind, what happened to Ciaran, the injustice, the heartbreak, the devastating impact it has, and not just on Ciaran siblings, but on his children, his grandchildren, his wife, the ripples…. It's overwhelming.
'As a family, you find it hard to breathe. Sometimes you have to shut it out. You have to block it because it's hard to get through your day. It's hard to put one foot in front of the other. You fill your day with things to, you know, things to take your mind off it.
'And he was my brother, he wasn't my dad, and he wasn't my granddad, you know. So what those kids have to go through is far, far harder than what we're going through as his siblings.'
Ronan angrily pointed out how broken our justice system is. He said: 'We have so many questions, but we're just a family. We're just another family that have been scarred by, you know, affected by this, you know, a broken system.'
He hit out at the garda investigation, adding: 'Ger went there and was doing a job that the police force here in Ireland should be doing. It should have been covered with a fine-tooth comb.' He said the sentencing was 'disgusting'.
'This is just disgusting. It's awful. This situation. You can't get angry. You're just floored. You're disappointed the system is broken. You know, as a family, we don't want to send some 22 year old kid to jail. We don't want to see some kid go to jail whose life is going to be thrown away. We don't want that. That's not what we're looking for.
'But what we're looking for is to make sure that someone else doesn't die because of carelessness, someone else's family is not ripped apart. Is our judicial system here in Ireland that broken? It's ridiculous. Ciaran's memory will not be brushed under the carpet because of that.'
A spokesperson for An Garda Siochana said officers 'carried out a thorough investigation' into the crash, including a forensic collision investigation of the scene and examinations of both vehicles.
Ronan also hit out at the charge of careless driving, saying: "We were told it would not be careless driving. Careless driving is not putting your indicator on, forgetting to look in your wing mirror, in your mirror, rear view mirror, before overtaking. You know, it's not taking somebody's life."
Ciaran's actor son Conall opened up about getting the devastating phone call and having to identify his father's body. He said: 'He was my hero. He was my mentor. He was a kind, gentle, proud man, loved his family, loved his friends. And there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him or see him in things that I do, and I'd give anything just to have another day with him.
'There was so much stuff that we were looking forward to doing. I never thought that I'd be identifying his body before any of those plans came into play.
I got a phone call, I think about half seven in the evening. I had just put my children to bed, and I didn't recognise the number, and I answered, and it was a nurse in Castlebar Hospital. And I didn't believe it. At first, I thought it was a joke. The woman had informed me that both my parents had been in an accident and that unfortunately, my father didn't make it. And I just couldn't believe it. I kept asking who it was. I had to give the phone to my wife.'
Conall said his mother has severe PTSD and survivor's guilt since the crash. 'Two years later, she's still suffering with all of her injuries, going to hospital appointments, GP visits, and it's not getting any easier. She was in the hospital recovering from all of her injuries, myself and my brother and my uncle had to identify dad's body.
"She missed the funeral. She missed the crematorium. She missed everything. She had to watch it from a hospital bed on a phone. They brought Ciaran into her, and we were all there with her. It was just such a surreal experience to see her say goodbye to the love of her life in a conference room in a hospital casket and bed beside each other. There's no explaining it. It's absolutely heartbreaking.'
Conall added that what devastated him the most was that Dean Harte's solicitor requested that his client be given a week to get his affairs in order before being banned from driving.
'I'd love a week with my father. I'd love to be given a week, even a day, just to say goodbye. We weren't even given that.'
Ronan said at the end of the RTE Radio 1 Drivetime report: 'We haven't heard from anybody. So it's up to us now, the family, to try and do something about it. We won't let this lie. We've looked at other cases, other families that have gone through what we're going through, and some more recent, it's continuing to happen. Something needs to change.'
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