Council pays €2,500 to keep toilets open amid shortfall

A West Waterford town council has provided funds from its own reserves to counteract a shortfall in local government funding that threatens to close its public toilets.

Lismore Town Council has given Waterford County Council a cheque for €2,500 to pay caretaker costs to defer closure of the town’s toilets until Dec 31.

The county council plans to close all public toilets in Co Waterford after the Department of the Environment left it €2m short in local authority funding.

Since Aug 31, only the county’s three blue flag resorts of Bonmahon, Tramore, and Clonea have retained public toilets and they will close shortly.

The department says an estimated household charge non-compliance rate of about 39% was responsible for the budgetary shortfall.

Following the county council’s decision, Lismore Mayor Julie Landers convened a special meeting. Agreement was made to accept the town council’s effective subsidy for the service.

The money was available, members were told by town clerk Karen Hallahan, “thanks to the foresight of Eric Flynn, a previous town clerk who stored money for elections and irregular expenses”.

Lismore is arguably the most visited town in west Waterford after Dungarvan, attracting more than 80,000 visitors annually. The annual Immrama travel festival, Lismore’s Castle, cathedral and heritage centre are prime attractions.

The town’s public toilets stand adjacent to a public park, playground, weekly farmers’ market and the approach road to the castle. The annual maintenance and running cost is about €8,000.

Town manager Michael Quinn told the September town council meeting that Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s department “proffered diverse answers” on a €2m deficit.

“They have described it to the county manager as ‘a revised allocation’,” he said, although some TDs and county councillors had been told the allocation was “withheld”. He said not knowing whether the money would eventually be released made it “extremely difficult” for the council to adopt even a medium-term services strategy.

“Right now, we cannot purchase road maintenance materials or conduct normal house repairs,” he said.