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Notorious Dublin laneway to be closed off to public due to scourge of drug use

Harbour Court in the city centre, has become a focal point for drug use and prostitution

Yesterday at 21:00

A laneway scourged by drug use, prostitution and littered with drug paraphernalia in inner city Dublin, will be closed off to the public following requests by local businesses.

Harbour Court, off Abbey Street, has become a focal point for “intravenous drug use”, according to Dublin City Council.

The narrow lane has been called an “indication” of how policing is failing in the inner city.

On Wednesday afternoon, drug paraphernalia scattered the laneway while a homeless man searched the ground “looking for drugs”.

Another homeless man, who wished not to be named, told independent.ie: “I spend a lot of time around here walking around the streets. There is a lot of drug use here, prostitution male and female.”

The 53-year-old, who has been homeless for 15 years, added: “It has been going on since the 1980s. It’s so open now [drug use] no one cares anymore. The heroin is gone, now it’s the crack and crystal meth being sold.

“It gets moved on, it was Thomas Street then it was the boardwalk, and now it’s outside the GPO.

“You would see them selling it directly right in front of the GPO. They would be using it here.”

He said a “few” people sleep at Harbour Court, but “it wouldn’t be a great spot for sleeping. It’s rough, it’s too open”.

He added that the lane can be dangerous at night with people “out of their minds” on drugs.

“It’s everywhere in Dublin. There would be something happening here every day,” he said.

“I think it’s a bad thing to cut it off, they are not cutting it off for a public reason, it won’t solve the issue.”

Dublin City Council has proposed closing off public access to the laneway due to anti-social behaviour.

At a meeting last week, councillor Janet Horner said: “It is a real failure… I would never walk that way, even though it is a convenient car-free route from Abbey Street to the Quays.

“It is a real indication of how much we are failing to deal with the issues around Abbey Street that we are actually having to extinguish what should be positive permeability routes though the inner city.

“They are having to be surrendered because we have not adequately dealt with the issues,” she said.

Councillor Cieran Perry said there is a lack of policing in the inner city and the lane has become the “reality of living in Dublin”.

“We simply do not have the policing resources to properly police the city,” he said.

Harbour Court is located near the new garda station which opened on O’Connell street in March.

Councillor Christy Burke said the lane is a “dangerous place to be”, however, “unfortunately that station closes at 2am when the mayhem usually starts in parts of the city”.

“It’s not a nice sight to see people shooting up in a laneway.”

Council official Karl Mitchell said the local authority has spoken with the businesses which open onto the laneway at the back.

Some of the businesses and pubs had previously pushed back on closing off public access, however, have now requested that the council close the public right of way to the lane due to “so much difficulty”.

“At the moment it’s not a space that is worth opening up, it won’t attract people in,” he said.

A report from Dublin City Council said: “The reason for this extinguishment is due to anti-social behaviour.

“It is regularly used for intravenous drug use and is littered with needles and other drug paraphernalia. Also it has become a location for illegal dumping.”