This article is from page 2 of the 2011-12-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
KILRUSH Town Council is set to spend € 32,870 in 2012 on providing a public toilet in the Martyrs Square in the town centre – this is despite the fact that the facility, which has been described as “the most expensive piece of retail property in Ireland”, only nets € 1,300 in revenue to the local authority.
The extent of the annual cost of the toilet, which is leased by Kilrush Town Council from Street Furniture Limited, is contained in the estimate of expenses that will go before the nine members of the local authority at this week’s budget meeting.
In light of these figures, it’s expected that Thursday night’s meeting in the Town Hall will hear renewed calls for the council executive to extricate itself from the leasing arrangement it has with Street Furniture Limited for the provision of the rarely used facility.
At the September meeting of Kilrush Town Council, it was revealed that the town authorities are tied to a 20-year contract with Street Fur- niture Limited for the toilet that was signed in 1999 and doesn’t run out until 2019.
The latest figures provided by the council have revealed that the provision of the toilet cost € 201,301.51 between 2005 and 2010, while 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.
Mayor of Kilrush, Ian Lynch has led calls for the council to try and extricate itself from this contract, which he has labeled “a huge drain on Kilrush Town Council’s resources at a time when we need every penny we can get”.
Mayor Lynch has also gone so far as to say “what can they do if we don’t pay it? They can’t get money off us that we don’t have”.
Town clerk John Corry has revealed that the council “would have to pay 25 per cent of the basic rent for each remaining year on the contract together with the costs of removing the universal superloo. As eight years remain in the contract, the current cost would be € 75,000”.