Council urged to provide public toilets for cycleway bridge users

A need for public toilets to be made available near Athlone's new cycleway bridge has been raised by Cllr Aengus O'Rourke, who said millions had been spent on the bridge without addressing where its users might 'spend a penny'.

"Next year, we will hopefully have a large number of visitors coming into town on the new bridge, but what happens when they're caught short?" asked Cllr O'Rourke at this month's meeting of the Athlone Moate Municipal District.

In a motion, the Fianna Fáil representative asked the local authority to "put in place good quality temporary public toilets from March to November in a suitable location at the rear of the Castle, or close to Luan Gallery."

He said the absence of public toilets in the town meant people were currently having to go into hospitality businesses to use their bathrooms, which was not ideal.

"Councillors in Cork recently brought to my attention that, during certain festivals in the summer, they use high-quality temporary public toilets, so could that be costed for us here in Athlone?" he asked.

In addition, he said there might be merit in looking to make public toilets available for use at Athlone Marina.

Cllr Paul Hogan said the company JCDecaux provided pre-built public toilets that "you could drop into an area" once a site for them had been identified.

"They are high quality and fully maintained. You see some of them in Salthill and around that neck of the woods," he said.

"There's certainly a need there, especially if somebody gets off a bus on a Sunday morning and the restaurants or pubs aren't open yet."

Cllr John Dolan suggested putting a temporary public toilet in place for a number of months to "see how it goes".

"There are enhancement plans for that area (on the west side of the bridge), and if (the temporary toilet) works, we could then put in something more permanent.

"It's such a pity when you put millions of euros of investment in to bringing people into a fabulous town, you cross over the bridge on a bike, and there's nowhere to go to the loo. That's unforgivable, really."

Cllr Frankie Keena agreed that there was "definitely merit" in Cllr O'Rourke's motion, saying the provision of public toilets was "an old chestnut" that had been coming up at council meetings repeatedly.

The Municipal District's outgoing director of services, Ambrose Clarke, agreed that the provision of public toilets had long been a "difficult" issue.

However, he said he would be interested in finding out the costs involved with the temporary public toilets used in Cork, as mentioned by Cllr O'Rourke, and that he would also look into the possibility of establishing a public toilet at Athlone Marina.

"We'll need to look into that, and see if it's something that's possible to do as a district," he said.

He added, however, that a lack of public toilet availability was not uncommon in Ireland. "I was in Dublin recently and we had to use a restaurant, because public toilets weren't readily available in the city centre," he commented.