Emergency services were yesterday called to the M6 motorway westbound outside Athenry after a prison van crashed and overturned.
At approximately 10am the prison van, with two cells, was on its way to Galway District Court from Dublin when it crashed into the median approximately two miles east of the Athenry junction, between junction 16 and 17.
Three people, a male and female member of staff as well as one female prisoner, are believed to have sustained non life-threatening injuries. They were taken to hospital as a precautionary measure.
It is understood the cause of the accident was a tyre rupturing and the vehicle subsequently overturning. Gardai and two units of the Galway fire services arrived at the scene and the area of the crash was closed off for a number of hours and diversions were put in place.
