Toilets in Cork City's library to be made available as English Market plan needs 'public consultation'

Council officials say significant public consultation will be required before medium-term goals, such as developing toilets near the entrance of the English Market, can progress

Plans to convert the former Hilser Jewellers building on the Grand Parade, Cork into public toilets sparked fury among traders in The English Market. Picture Dan Linehan

Toilets in Cork’s central library are to be made available to the wider public on a pay-per-use basis within weeks.

It’s proposed to open the Grand Parade building's toilets to the general public from 10am to 8pm, seven days a week, at 50c a go, with plans in the pipeline to make toilets in the civic buildings on Anglesea St available to the public during its opening hours too.

The toilets in the North Main Street shopping centre will be reopened to the general public soon, in line with the car park opening hours.

And the council also hopes to work with business owners around The Lough, Blackrock Harbour, the Lee Fields and Douglas Community Park to encourage them to open their loos to the general public.

'Significant consultation'

But officials say while those short-term policy goals can be introduced with immediate effort, significant public consultation will be required before medium-term goals, such as developing public toilets in the vacant Hilser’s building near the entrance of the city’s historic English Market, can progress.

This proposal sparked an outcry from market traders over the weekend.

The details emerged tonight as city councillors adopted a public toilet policy document, the details of which were outlined by chair of the council’s environment committee, Cllr Dan Boyle.

It shows that the council plans to renovate the ground floor of the former Hilser's building into a city council information and public display centre and to install public toilets and public changing facilities.

The council’s director of operations, David Joyce, said “significant public consultation” will be undertaken before any work occurs.

He insisted that it's a medium-term solution pending the construction of a new central library, with upgraded public toilets.

However, he has ruled out reopening the existing public toilet facilities on the Grand Parade, which were closed in 2019, and the deployment of mobile urinals.

'Leeside Leithreas'

There is also a plan to develop a ‘Leeside Leithreas’ system involving the operators of pubs, restaurants and hotels signing a charter with the council to allow members of the public to access their toilet facilities.

There was a broad welcome for the policy document, described by Cllr Paudie Dineen as long overdue. Independent Cllr Ken O’Flynn said it is vital that the city delivers clean and safe facilities.

“They should not be known as places where people can shoot up,” he said.

Independent Cllr Mick Finn said as the city moves towards a summer outdoors, public toilet facilities are needed and all options to deliver them must be considered.

FG Cllr Des Cahill said temporary facilities should be considered, while FF Cllr Fergal Dennehy and SF Cllr Mick Nugent asked that the opening hours would be extended to facilitate the night-time economy.