The number of addicts attending the drug treatment centre at Trinity Court, Pearse Street, Dublin, cannot expand beyond the numbers attending in July, the High Court has ordered.
Mr Justice McCracken said yesterday that there should be no expansion beyond that figure until an action which local traders have brought against the operator of the clinic, the Drug Treatment Centre Board, is heard.
He also joined the Minister for Health to the action as defendant.
Local traders had objected to the numbers attending the centre. A spokesman claimed the centre had plans to increase its activities and open on a 24-hour basis.
The number of addicts attending the centre at Trinity Court last year was 1,790 and there were more than 51,000 visits. The centre runs three clinics.
Yesterday's decision by Mr Justice McCracken related to an application by the traders for an interlocutory injunction restraining the numbers to pre-1992 figures, pending the trial of the action against the Drug Treatment Board.
At an earlier court hearing counsel for the traders described the centre as a "ghastly, festering sore" and claimed it was treating patients from the north and south city.
The traders also alleged there was an indication that the Drug Treatment Board proposed to significantly increase the numbers attending the premises.
In a reserved judgment, Mr Justice McCracken said the traders complained of harassment, theft, violence using syringes and threats of violence.
It was alleged that these incidents had increased substantially in the last five years and were having a serious effect on businesses.
The DTB claimed the problems facing the traders were no different from problems anywhere in the inner city and that there was less crime in the Pearse Street area than in many other inner-city areas.
Mr Justice McCracken said the immediate result of reducing numbers to the 1992 level would be that fewer drug addicts would be treated. That was clearly against the public interest and would also deprive possibly hundreds of individuals of badlyneeded treatment, he said.
"I certainly do not think I would be justified in taking such a step at the interlocutory stage and on possibly a temporary basis."
However, he accepted that the board intended to expand the use of the centre. Restraining such expansion would not affect existing patients.
He granted an interlocutory injunction restraining the board from using the centre for numbers in excess of the number attending on July 21st, the date the traders issued proceedings.