Irish Examiner view: Dearth of facilities leads to 'wild toileting'

You can hardly blame businesses for feeling they shouldn't have to do all the heavy lifting for public convenience

The ladies loos on Lavitt's Quay in Cork — and their men's counterpart on Merchant's Quay — are long gone since this March 1956 photo, and have never been replaced. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

“He is from Cork. Does he care about Cork?” So asked a judge last week when he sentenced a 61-year-old man for exposing himself and urinating in the city’s main street. It’s a good question, and one worth asking, albeit that the defendant had 185 previous convictions, including 76 for being drunk.

But, whatever the circumstances of this case, there’s a bigger question which also has to be put, and it is one which has exercised citizens for a number of decades. Why is Ireland so very poor at providing public conveniences?