Residents living near Dublin port cannot sleep at night because of noise caused by intensification of operations at a container terminal, the High Court has been told.

The residents, from Pigeon House Road, Ringsend, have brought an action against the Dublin Port Company, which controls the port, and a container operator, Marine Terminals Ltd (MTL), alleging noise nuisance and breach of planning laws due to alleged intensification.

Among the orders sought are that activities at the MTL facility should cease at 11pm and not resume until 7am.

The defendants, who are separately represented, deny the claims against them.

MTL, owned by the Merseyside Docks and Harbour Group, denies the alleged intensification of operations.

Opening the residents’ case, Seamus Woulfe SC said his clients could not get enough peace in order to sleep for up to five nights a week because of MTL’s activities. They have been complaining since 2002, and before that, but had got no satisfaction from either defendant, he said.

The court would hear evidence of “engines running, vehicles moving, cranes moving up and down, clanging and banging”, counsel said. Containers were being moved from ship to shore and vice versa during the day and also during night time hours, he said.

This was a case of “the small man against the big company and the conflict between sleep and profit”, he said.

The residents were not seeking that MTL, a big and profitable company, should stop its activities but simply that there should be no activity between 11pm and 7am. They were also claiming for distress and disruption to their lives.

The residents seek a declaration certain constructions at the MTL facility constituted unauthorised development because they had led to intensification.

MTL argues the structures are exempted developments which facilitate more efficient use and have led to a reduction of noise.

More than a third of all container traffic through Dublin passes through the MTL terminal.

The case continues before Ms Justice Marie Baker.