This article is from page 6 of the 2012-01-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
KILRUSH Town Council has finally resolved to flush away the public toilet in the town centre that costs over € 200,000 to operate over a fiveyear period, while netting less that € 10,000 in income for the local authority over the same period.
The council has issued formal notice that it is to extricate itself from a 20-year agreement for the public toilet on Martyr’s Square in the town, by terminating the contract for the facility with JCDecaux Street Furniture Limited. The toilet will still be in operation in 2012 at a rental cost of € 35,910, but to terminate the contract later in the year must pay € 60,382 to Street Furniture Limited.
At the September meeting of Kilrush Town Council it was revealed that the town authorities were tied to a 20-year contract for provision of the toilet that was signed in 1999 and doesn’t run out until 2019.
The figures provided by the local revealed that the provision of the toilet cost € 201,301.51 between 2005 and 2010. Over the course of the same six-year period income to the council from the public’s use of the facility was just € 9,940.49 – figures that led independent councillor Paul Moroney to describe it as “the most expensive piece of retail property in Ireland”.
Mayor of Kilrush, Ian Lynch led calls for the council to extricate itself from this contract, which he said was “a huge drain on Kilrush Town Council’s resources at a time when we need every penny we can get”.
Now in light of a council report, which revealed that annual receipts from the superloo are about € 1,200, councillor have unanimously agreed to terminate the contract which will save the local authority € 239,401 in rental charges for the remaining six years and eight months of the contract.
“We thought long and hard about this, but it needs to go,” said Cllr Marion McMahon-Jones (FG). “We cannot justify the expense and we have no statutory obligation to provide a public toilet. It is necessary now to terminate the contract.”