A woman who witnessed the aftermath of the fatal bus crash in Dublin city centre yesterday has said she was “horrified” when people around her began videoing the tragedy. 

Irish Independent journalist Melanie Finn was out shopping for some clothes for her 11 year old when she first noticed a number of emergency vehicles racing up Talbot Street. 

Once she reached North Earl Street, she noticed a double decker bus had crashed. 

 “When I arrived at the scene they were pulling the large medical tent to an area in front of the bus,” she recalled on Lunchtime Live. 

“The man beside me took out his phone and started videoing it. 

“Gardaí came up and said, ‘Stop videoing that’ and he started getting out to her and he was saying you don't have a right to say that to me.

“I'm on public property, I can do what I like and she said no, ‘That's wrong, if you have content that could be part of an investigation I have the right to confiscate your phone, something along those lines’.”

Eventually, the man gave up and walked away. 

Since then, it has emerged that an elderly man, Frank Daly of East Wall, Dublin, died in the crash and a further three people were hospitalised. 

Overall, Ms Finn found it was “horrifying” that so anyone’s reaction is to pull out their phone and video someone in their last moments. 

“Even if someone is injured, you've no right to do that,” she said. 

“What are you going to do with those images? Are you going to send them to your friends? Are you going to upload them to social media?” 

Ms Finn added that she would never “dream” as a journalist of taking videos of an injured person and that she is certain the family of anyone in an accident would not want ‘to see images of that scene’ on social media.

So far this year, 16 people have died on Ireland's road - one person fewer than during the same period in 2025.

Main image: Emergency services at the scene of the Dublin bus crash. Picture by: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie