Provision of Public Toilets in Cathedral Square

By Colette Sexton



Councillor Padraig Conneely has reiterated his call for the provision of public toilets beside Galway Cathedral. The Cathedral Square acts as a bus depot for a large number of NUI Galway students as well as several tourist bus operators.

Last year Galway City Council agreed to install two public toilets in the area around the Cathedral. It was decided that the toilets would be designed in a way that complemented the surrounding area. Councillor Conneely explained that it was important to preserve the aesthetics of the area:



Galway Cathedral... Pic Colette Sexton



“We made a decision last year in principle that two public toilets would go into the Cathedral Square because obviously it is an important area. It was intended that the aesthetics of the area would be preserved as there are stone walls and trees there so it was planned that they would look aesthetically pleasing and would not be stand out or awkward looking toilets.”

All of the sewerage work necessary for the toilets to be installed has now been completed. The funding for these works was allocated by the Department of the Environment and the Department of Transport but the actual toilet units must be paid for out of Galway City Council’s budget. Councillor Connelly believes that this is causing a major delaying in the fitting of the toilet units:

“The road works and sewerage have been completed so that they would be easily connected [to the public toilets]. The problem is that the Department of the Environment and Transport do not make funding available to purchase the unit while they do make funding available for the road works and sewerage and the link up system.”

It is estimated that the public toilet units would cost between seventy and one hundred thousand euro. Councillor Coneely says that he will be working as hard as possible in the next month to ensure the funding is allocated for toilets in the Cathedral Square in the 2012 budget and that work will begin on them early next year:

“There are up to forty buses there on a Friday for the student population and tourist buses. It is a massive problem as a large number of people congregate there with no toilet facilities. Certainly I believe where there is a public bus depot, which this is now, the onus is on the public authorities to supply toilets. I would certainly be pushing that very hard in the months ahead for that inclusion in the budget to go ahead with it.”

Published in SIN NUI Galway's Student Newspaper, 11 October 2011