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3 Jun
A Cork city mother took to social media and shared the horrific story of how both her and her mother's cars were broken into and damaged by joyriders.
Marie, who lives in Blackpool, has now been forced to quit her job after losing two cars - and said that she is "terrified" of the thugs who regularly steal and vandalise cars in her community.
The young mum, who has asked us to withhold her full name, has reported to the incidents to the Gardai and she says she has been assured that they are devoting extra resources to the issue in Blackpool.
Three weeks ago, she found her car - a Toyota Aqua - broken into, with severe damage caused to the ignition.
"It's a make of car that's targeted by joyriders," Marie said to CorkBeo.
"I had to borrow my mam's car - I can't get a rental as I have a learner's permit."
She borrowed her mother's car to drive to work in East Cork, and also drive her kids to school in Douglas.
Unfortunately, Marie's mother's Nissan car was then broken into last Friday.
"Both mine and my mam's car are Japanese imports, but the parts are difficult to find,"
"My car is still in the garage, and I won't get it until end of July, but my mam's car is far damaged and we will not be able to repair it - its quite old and the parts are not available."
The 40 year old had to give a leave of unpaid absence to her workplace as she could not travel without her car, and now takes the bus to drop her kids to school.
"I take around 8 buses a day to drop and pick my kids off to school. It's all ruined for me - half my day is spent on the bus."
'It's awful, I've lived abroad for nearly 20 years and I have never had anything like this happen to me,"
"I am frightened that this happened in my home town - this is scary."
Marie said that she genuinely does not know if she wants her car back as she knows the thugs will come back.
With almost 17,000 followers on TikTok, Marie wanted to raise awareness of the joyriders in the city and hopes that people will be more aware and report the thugs.