RESIDENTS of an Eastern Health Board home in Dublin do not want to be dispersed to make way for services for drug addicts.
The residents of the Weir Home in Cork Street, some of whom have been there for 15 years, were formerly in St Brendan's psychiatric hospital. They were moved to the home as part of the care in the community programme.
They learned last year of the move and that the building would house a methadone clinic and other services for heroin addicts.
In all, Weir Home has 24 residents. Several said they first heard of the planned move from Cork Street residents who have formed a committee to oppose the clinic.
People in the home oppose the move on many grounds. They have become part of the community and know and me9t local people daily. They fear being sent to where they are not known and where they may meet hostility from young people.
Residents have their own rooms and they say they have been told that the move means they will have to share. They also say they have formed a community within the home which the move will break up.
The Eastern Health Board says it had intended to close the home before it decided to set up a service for drug addicts. Residents say they were never told of any such plans.
The health board also says they will be provided with superior accommodation elsewhere and that not all residents object to sharing rooms. Friends will not be separated in the move, the EHB says.
The local committee, headed by Mr Charlie Hammond, says the residents of the home have built a life in Cork Street.
The residents' committee also opposes the plan to put a methadone clinic into the street for drug addicts on the grounds that this will bring more addicts into the street and that old people will feel intimidated. They say addicts visiting the centre could target old people collecting pensions at the post office.
They have suggested that a mobile clinic be used instead to visit the specific areas and flat complexes where drug addicts live, that local volunteers should help to run the mobile clinic and that an employment scheme, involving cal businesses, should be provided for former addicts.