Council admits it hasn't got a penny to spend on any more beach toilets

SOME of Cork’s most popular beaches, including Rocky Bay, Myrtleville and The Dock in Kinsale, are crying out for public conveniences especially with the recent hot spell, a meeting of Bandon Kinsale Municipal District was recently told.

Cllr Aidan Lombard (FG) said both himself and Cllr Rachel McCarthy had mentioned the need for toilets at Myrtleville and Rocky Bay at a previous meeting.

‘With the amount of people using those two beaches at Myrtleville and Rocky Bay, I don’t think it’s fair that we have parents with young kids who have nowhere to bring them to the toilets,’ said Cllr Lombard.

He said that beachgoers to Rocky Bay have no alternative as there are no businesses there and while he acknowledged it’s costly to run these, toilets he didn’t think €3,200 for two months is a lot of money.

‘No disrespect, but we saw the funfair we had for the 50 years and the money that was spent on that and we seem to have plenty of money when it’s PR but these are real services that we’re supposed to be delivering and I think we have to deliver. We need to get two toilets down to two beaches and the money has to be found.’

Municipal District officer Enda O’Halloran told councillors that they had overspent by €3,000 on public toilets in the Municipal District last year already. He also said The Dock beach in Kinsale is also crying out for a toilet and that if they pay for that, it would mean taking away money from another service.

Senior executive officer Mac Dara Ó h-Icí said they would look into the matter and added that a lot of the cost involved is in the maintenance of the toilets. Mr O’Halloran added that there is a service contract that involves a company taking out the effluent from a type of portaloo and that the Council doesn’t own such a machine and the big cost is getting these toilets serviced. 

Cllr Kevin Murphy (FG) said that contractors are expensive but that the amount of people going to the beaches is chronic. 

Cllr Rachel McCarthy (SF) said that they should be looking at central funds and that there is €150,000 for public toilets available.

‘There’s no reason why we can’t be asking for this,’ said Cllr McCarthy.

Cllr Lombard said that there is an obvious location at the carpark at Rocky Bay for a toilet as well as in Myrtleville. At the time of going to press there was still no sign of a temporary toilet being delivered to Myrtleville, while a toilet was installed at Robert’s Cove.

A number of people also contacted the offices of The Southern Star this summer to say that with the huge numbers of people swimming at Lough Hyne, it was disgraceful there were no public toilets in the area.

The modern toilet block on the pier in Baltimore has often been held up as a fine example of public conveniences.