The car thieves used the Bebo website to post code details of locations where a series of stolen cars had been hidden to ring in the New Year with another night of misery for Falls Road residents.

Community safety workers were involved in a race against the death drivers to find the stolen cars before they could be used to wreak mayhem, said Sinn Fein MLA Fra McCann.

The cars were used in joyriding incidents in the Albert Street area, narrowly avoiding head-on collisions on a number of occasions and mounting the pavements where pedestrians were walking.

The New Year's Eve incidents came just days after a spate of vandalism in which cars across west Belfast and in Lisburn were broken into and handbrakes released, leaving them to plough down hills.

It's believed that night of carnage had also been plotted online by louts through their social networking websites.

Said Mr McCann: "On New Year's Eve I got the City Hall staff out to try to clear the roads, which they were trying to make barricades.

"But the problem is so bad it has reached the point where maintenance workers don't want to go into some areas because they are being intimidated by gangs of kids as young as 10 or 11.

"There are many in this area working flat out to get rid of the image that it has, but their good work is being ripped apart."

The Sinn Fein MLA added: "The only way this problem will be defeated is through community action, but that needs to be backed up by the statutory authorities.

"The police, Social Services and the Housing Executive and housing associations all have a role to play in tackling the problems that these thugs are causing on a nightly and weekly basis.

"They should be identified and their families made to pay the cost of whatever damage has been caused by their vandalism."