A mother of seven was in a critical condition last night after being struck by a stolen car in Dublin early yesterday.
The woman and her friend were pinned against a railing and wall by the black BMW outside the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption at 1.30 a.m.
The car occupants ran away. Gardai were still searching for them last night.
Ms Dolores Bradley, who has seven children, of Kylemore Road, and Ms Geraldine Lennon, of Convent Lawns, were returning home from a night out. Ms Bradley is in her early 40s and Ms Lennon is said to be in her late 30s.
The stolen car was travelling down Kylemore Road in the direction of the Chapelizod by-pass when the accident happened.
The driver lost control at a roundabout linking Ballyfermot Road with Kylemore Road.
The women were taken by ambulance to St James's Hospital and Ms Bradley was later transferred to Beaumont Hospital.
A spokeswoman at Beaumont described her condition as "very critical" yesterday evening. Ms Lennon was said to be in a stable condition at St James's.
"There is a joy-riding problem re-emerging in Ballyfermot for the past five or six months. People are extremely annoyed and very, very angry that this practice is still going on," said Ald Michael Conaghan, a local Labour Party councillor.
"I don't think the gardai are sufficiently pro-active in trying to prevent it," he said.
A Garda spokesman said there were many angles to the problem. "There have been lots of initiatives over the years. There were about 13,500 unauthorised takings of cars last year. That's down from 18,500 in the mid1980s," said the spokesman.
