Gardaí took aerial photographs of the scene of a crash that claimed four lives yesterday in an effort to determine the cause of the collision which killed members of three generations of the same family.
Speaking from the scene of the crash, near the Kilcoran Lodge Hotel south of Cahir, Supt Mary Fitzgerald said: "We're having aerial photos taken. We don't know the exact cause of the accident as yet."
She said gardaí had spoken to a number of witnesses who would be interviewed.
Weather conditions were not adverse, but the road had been damp, she told RTÉ news.
"We believe that the truck that collided with the car was on the wrong side of its road. That's all we can establish as yet.
"The truck was going south of Cahir towards Cork and the car would have been coming from the Cork direction towards Cahir.
"We got the call at 7.30 a.m. so it would have been still dark at that point and lights would have been on on the vehicles. This is a very good stretch of road here, very wide . . . There's a broken white line in the centre."
She said that on behalf of the Garda Síochána she wanted "to extend our deepest sympathies to all the relatives of the those who are deceased".
The road is due to be by-passed as part of the National Roads Authority plans for a new highway between Dublin and Cork.
The road would be by-passed with the creation of a new motorway stretch between Mitchelstown and Cashel.
The proposed 80 km stretch of road, one of the State's largest, is currently at "preferred route" stage and construction is expected to begin in 2006.
The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, has said he wants this route and the Dublin to Galway route prioritised and "substantially" complete by the end of 2007.
Another life was claimed in a road accident early yesterday morning near Tubbercurry in Co Sligo.
A 30-year-old man was killed in a head-on collision.
He was a resident of Sligo town, but believed to be originally from Britain.
A woman was also injured in the two-car accident and was taken to Sligo General Hospital where her condition is described as stable.
The accident happened in foggy conditions shortly before 7.30 a.m.
Yesterday's traffic accidents bring to 22 the number of people killed in January on the roads in Ireland, more than were killed in the whole of January last year.