Letters to the Editor: Charging for public toilets is a real kick in the backside
'I got a sinking feeling when I read that Kerry County Council is to charge 50c to spend a penny in the new public toilets in Fenit,' writes Billy Ryle. Stock picture: Denis Minihane
I got a sinking feeling when I read that Kerry County Council is to charge 50c to spend a penny in the new public toilets in Fenit. This is a kick in the backside to those who need to unload in the loo.
A nominal charge today becomes a substantial charge tomorrow, and 50c will become €5 in no time at all.
If the powers that be get away with this affront to post-covid infection prevention protocols, we’ll all be forced to urinate at sea if we can’t come up with the readies.
God help the poor misfortunate with a bout of diarrhoea who hasn’t a fist full of 50c coins.
Needs must when the devil drives and when you have to go, you have to go.
Even if a person is arrested for defecating in Tralee Bay, any fair-minded judge will dismiss the charge on the grounds of involuntary motion.
The public toilet facilities have long been a mainstay in Fenit. All of us swimmers and visitors to Fenit got relief in the excellent facilities without mention of payment.
Genial caretaker Mrs Ann Locke always had the facilities spick and span. It was a pleasure to do your business in the public toilets where there was always soap and towels available for a hygienic hand wash.
The swimming and local communities have, for years, done voluntary beach clean-ups, running repairs, painting, and sand removal along the paths for the safety of the elderly and infirm. It’s a labour of love and no thanks is expected nor, indeed, extended by County Hall.
Just to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, we’re now expected to pay up for our bodily excretions, or else to pee off.
On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine/url], and — as the world focuses on the war in the Middle East — we should not forget Putin’s war aims: The denial of the right of a people to self-determination and the elimination of Ukraine as a sovereign state.
It is the quintessence of Putin’s ‘restoration of the Russian Empire’ project which has had a direct and destabilising impact on the security of all European countries.
The aim is to weaken Europe — militarily, technologically, economically, and socially — so that Putin and Russia, abetted by Donald Trump and the US, undermine our democracies and subjugate us using disinformation, cyberattacks, and traditional warfare.
This is why Ukraine is not only a humanitarian or security issue. It is, above all, a strategic issue that will determine Europe’s future.
It’s time for Europe to ‘screw its courage to the sticking-place’ — not just for Ukraine, but for our own survival. Europe should:
- Persist in arming Ukraine;
- Persevere in mobilising support for Ukraine;
- Reaffirm that Ukraine’s borders are sacrosanct;
- Reinforce sanctions;
- Fast track Ukraine’s EU accession.
Only by successfully delivering a just and sustainable peace based on these actions will Europe’s security and future prosperity be ensured.
Slava Ukraini! Heroiam slava!
My mother had three sons with my father.
I’m the eldest.
She had one of those ‘how to be a good wife’ instruction manuals in the press over the oven, but there was also a copy of on the shelf beside the recipe books.
One Christmas Day (3.14pm in 1997, to be exact), just before she dished out the brussels sprouts, right in the middle of the traditional ‘sit-down-woman-for-fuck-saking’, she slowly addressed us one by one.
To the baby: “You are the youngest, but you are 18 now.”
To the loyal middle guy: “You’ve had a job for the last few years.”
To the black sheep: “We haven’t seen you here since you left school.”
To her beloved: “You’re going to have to learn how to boil an egg.”
And as we all sat there with our mouths open, staring up at her like confused hungry hatchlings, she calmly announced: “I’m going back to college to do a degree in Spanish and archaeology, and this is the last time I’m doing the Christmas dinner”, before she sat down in total silence to cut her own slice of goose.
True story...
Karma is often summarised as: “What goes around comes around.”
The firing of Kristi Noem means she is now facing the karma for all of the people who were mistreated and manhandled under her watch, and where the due process rights of US citizens were violated out on the streets of Minnesota and beyond.
One could argue that Noem is now facing the karma for all of her political transgressions. If Donald Trump really wants to turn things around, and if he wants to convince the American people that there’s nothing to hide about him in those Epstein files, it’s my contention that he has to fire more people from his administration.
I believe he should fire Pam Bondi and all of the people below her that’s doing her bidding, because they are making Trump look bad and they are wasting resources.
It’s my assertion that the American people would be more supportive of Trump if they were to witness a transmogrification of his administration. I would say to Trump that it’s now time to clean house.
Pete Hegseth, Corey Lewandowski, and Pam Bondi must go. All of the incompetent people under Bondi must go too. That way Trump’s poll numbers would go up and people would say: “Trump has got nothing to hide in that he’s now got rid of the dead wood in justice department and so there’s nothing there in the Epstein files for this man to worry about.”
If Trump does not take action now, he runs the risk of karma catching up with him too.
