The council is considering proposals from two private companies to provide public toilets in the city centre

On Sunday in Howth, eight people were queuing to use the three public toilets near the DART station.

Inside one of the toilets, the bin was full, the floor was dirty and there was no toilet paper. Still, it is somewhere for people to go.

Healthmatic, a private company, manages the toilets in Howth on contract from Fingal County Council. The company operates public toilets, which passersby can use for free,  at several locations for the council.

With Dublin City Council paying €390,000 a year for just one set of public toilets at St Stephen’s Green, councillors regularly ask why the city doesn’t look more closely at what Fingal has rolled out.

“The failure to deliver toilets [in Dublin city] has been so astounding,” says Social Democrats Councillor Catherine Stocker. “It’s rolling on, and on and on and nothing ever happens.”

But Dublin City Council is weighing up its options for more toilets, says a spokesperson.

In December 2022, the council issued a prior information notice for “serviced public conveniences”, which is a way of scoping out if there are companies interested in doing a job.

It got a limited response, said a council spokesperson last week. “Two companies responded, with options and market experience which was welcomed.”

Now, the council is considering issues such as where would be the best locations for any new toilets, whether to charge for using them, and if security will be needed.

Exploring alternatives

Dublin City Council managers have said that they are concerned about managing anti-social behaviour and vandalism in toilets, so public toilets in the city centre would need to be staffed.

“The toilets in Father Collins Park were vandalised within an inch of their lives,” said senior parks superintendent Fergus O’Carroll, at the meeting of the North Central Area Committee in October 2022.

In April 2021, the council tried a different approach. It tendered for businesses to run coffee docks with toilets attached.

Stocker, the Social Democrats councillor, says the coffee dock toilets in Griffith Park in Drumcondra are a success but in other places, the scheme didn’t work out.

Some of the businesses that signed on to that scheme later cut the number of days that they were open, including Eamonn Ceannt Park in Crumlin and others shut down altogether. Some promised locations never got off the ground, too, like Clontarf Promenade.

“The model which was proposed to us was one of combining toilets and commercial outlets and has failed to materialise,” said Stocker in a motion to the full council in September 2022, which was agreed.

She pointed to the relative success of Fingal County Council’s strategy on toilets in the motion. The Fingal model is basically council-owned units managed by a company.

In Santry Demense, Fingal County Council runs public toilets with no charge like the ones in Howth, said Stocker, by phone on Monday.

The council could also consider using the toilets that wash themselves out automatically after each use, she says.

There are multiple ways in which to run public toilets, says Stocker, and few people care which model the council uses as long as it makes public toilets available.

Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney says it is hard to think of a councillor who hasn’t raised the issue with council management. “There is complete consensus among all councillors.”

Local councillors were promised a coffee dock with a toilet on the Clontarf promenade, but it didn’t go ahead because it was too near other premises that sold coffee, says Cooney.

Then nearby in Fairview Park the coffee dock closed down, she says. Another company has since opened there – but isn’t operating every day, says Cooney.

“People just want the toilets and they want them years ago,” she says.

Would you spend a penny?

If staff are needed to keep toilets safe and hygienic, would it be acceptable to charge the public to use them?

Stocker says she would prefer if the council could provide toilets without charging people, like it provides many other public services. But she says people would accept a small charge, if necessary.

Cooney and Stocker both say the charge must be payable by card as most people don’t carry change any more.

Cooney says she would even tap for someone else to get in if they were stuck and she thinks most people would do so as well. “I certainly wouldn’t mind.”

One difference between how Fingal County Council and Dublin City Council have gone about providing the toilets is that the former owns its toilets, while the latter has rented its units.

Fingal County Council paid around €687,000 to install four sets of public toilets in parks, said a statement in June 2021. That is roughly €170,000 for each block that the council owns.

Dublin City Council has spent €67,000 each year renting the units at St Stephen’s Green, its figures have shown. Over three years, that would be more expensive than a built block.

Both outsource management and cleaning.

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council says it hopes to provide safe accessible toilets in the city centre and is considering a future procurement option. “Alternative conveniences are being considered, where users of the facility pay a fee.”

“Depending on usage, this option could provide a flexible approach to cleaning and manning,” says the spokesperson, “although anti-social activity, drug use, safety and providing clean environments to the public must be considered, and a security presence may still be required.”