Staff at the Drug Treatment Centre Board are refusing to answer the telephone at Trinity Court, the board's Dublin headquarters, in what is being described as limited industrial action.
The Pearse Street treatment centre was operating yesterday, with addicts attending for methadone prescriptions and counselling. However, staff have refused to answer the telephones so that anyone seeking an appointment is unable to do so by phone.
Staff at the centre refused to comment, saying the chief executive was unavailable to explain the situation.
A spokesman for the Health Service Employers' Agency, the State agency responsible for the board, said it was unclear what had caused the dispute.
Five hundred and thirty addicts are registered for methadone treatment at the centre, which also houses a separate Eastern Health Board-run clinic on its fourth floor.
Last year local traders took a High Court action against the board to try to cap the number of addicts treated there. The traders complained that assaults, robberies and violent attacks had increased in the area as a result of the centre's activities.
