JUDGE LIMITS NUMBERS ATTENDING TREATMENT CENTRE

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
24hour 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
pre1992 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 innercity 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.