€100,000 price tag on public toilet

€100,000 price tag on Ballina public toilet


Anna Marie Flynn

Ballina will have to shell out over €100,000 to provide a public toilet – if a request from councillors gets the go-ahead.
At last week’s meeting of Ballina Town Council, elected members were informed that the purchase of a self-cleaning unisex public toilet unit would cost in the region of €100,000 and annual maintainence costs are estimated to come in at a further €25,000.
Cllr Willie Nolan was the last in a long line of councillors to highlight the on-going issue at a meeting of the authority in December last year, and called on the executive to revisit the matter and research the associated costs as soon as possible.  His request was seconded by Independent councillor, Gerry Ginty, who said he was ‘embarrassed’ to inform visitors to the area that there was no public toilet in the town.


COSTLY FACILITY Something similar to this public toilet in Westport will cost Ballina Town Council €100,000.?Grianghraf: Cormac Ó Cionnaith

In response to the request, Town Clerk, Carmel Murphy, told elected members that she had carried out extensive research on the cost of providing the service, contacting local authorities in eleven towns of a similar size to Ballina. Her research revealed that of these, four had no public toilet facility and the other seven had discontinued use of toilet facilities due to mounting maintenance costs.
While purchasing a modern self-cleaning toilet is extremely costly, she outlined rent costs of same would be in the region of €35,000 annually including maintenance.
Ms Murphy told councillors: “If the toilet was to pay for itself at a cost of 20 cent per usage it would have to be used 175,000 times a year. If the charge was as high as €1 it would still have to be used 35,000 times a year to pay for itself.”
While members noted the associated costs seemed high, they unanimously agreed that the provision of a public toilet facility is desirable in a town the size of Ballina and expressed a wish that the facility be in place this summer.