Dublin Corporation's attempts to maintain current basic lift services for high-rise tenants in the Ballymun flats complex could be put at risk by any order compelling it to engage in strike-breaking activities, the High Court heard yesterday.
Mr Frank Callanan, counsel for the local authority, told Mr Justice Smith yesterday that the already minimal service which the corporation had been able to keep in place in the face of a national strike by lift maintenance operators could become uncontrollable.
Opposing an application by residents for an order directing the corporation to provide and maintain a satisfactory lifts service within the tower blocks, Mr Callanan said such a direction, if at all operable, could put the unacceptably depleted lifts service in jeopardy.
A group of residents, some of whom claimed to have been imprisoned in their high-rise apartments for more than 40 days because of the lifts maintenance dispute, told the court their plight was intolerable and inhumane.
Mr Edward Walsh, SC, for the residents, said some of the tenants suffered from mobility problems and had been left with no lifts to some floors in some of the eight-storey and 15-storey towers.
"They have been left with no means of getting from their apartments to the outside world other than by stairs.
"For many it has caused extreme difficulty, hardship and inconvenience."
Mr Justice Smith heard that Dublin Corporation had contracted with Pickerings Lifts Ltd for the maintenance of all lifts in Ballymun. The company was now in a national trade dispute and unable to provide other than an emergency service.
Mr Walsh said that although it was open to the corporation to make alternative arrangements, it had abrogated its entire responsibility in relation to the matter.
Tenants, particularly pregnant women, mothers with young children, the elderly and others with mobility problems had, as a result, found themselves prisoners in their homes.
Mr Callanan said the corporation accepted the situation was unacceptable but there was little, if anything, it could do for the duration of the strike.
A suggestion on behalf of the tenants that it could import lift-maintenance contractors from Northern Ireland or England could seriously escalate the existing problem.
He said a court order would have extremely serious consequences for the corporation. Such an order would take some time to be complied with, if it could be complied with at all in the current difficult circumstances.
Mr Callanan said everyone with lifts on their premises had been warned by the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union that any company making alternative provisions to provide a lifts service, other than an emergency one, would be deemed to have engaged in strike-breaking.
He felt, given the extreme physical restraints under which the corporation was operating at present, it was not an appropriate case in which the court should make a mandatory order.
Mr Justice Smith reserved judgment until tomorrow.