Dublin must be the only capital city with no public toilets. Must be a nightmare if you’ve got kids with you.

Are DCC going to reduce the rates these businesses pay ?

20 years they had to sort this out with the money from the so called “boom” and here they are, without a pot for us to piss in. Good auld DCC.

Totally unfair to expect this of businesses, I can see the tracksuit brigade wandering in and out of premises with their bag of cans, screamin ”I know me rights”

It’s a disgrace that there is a dearth of public toilet facilities in Dublin.

True story – I have a public toilet at my workplace. We had a junkie overdose and die in there, it attracted them all the time. We also have people going in having sex

That’s without mentioning The non stop vandalism, sink smashed off the wall, obscene graffitti, toilet rolls stolen constantly (I’m serious!)

Sadly the amount of lowlifes in society today is making it harder to cater towards the genuine people

I have a local business and do allow people use it if needed especially people with kids etc. But if it was law it would cause us no end of problems. We have to be able to use our own discretion.

I find businesses are very accomodating already if someone needs to use their loos but I can see it turning into a right mess. I worked in a cafe when I was in college and we used to get a pair of junkies regularly come in and take over the single female loo for at least half an hour. We were always too afraid to confront them, they were well known around the city and our £2.25 an hour wasn’t worth the risk of taking them on. Good point made by Grainne about the rates, that would be the leadt I’d expect.

The general situation in Ireland with regard to public conveniences is a national disgrace, it’s not just Dublin.

charge 50 cent or a euro for non customers. if you need to go you’ll pay.

When I was in Ghent in Belgium, there were cleverly designed street urinals for men. A curved structure about five foot high adjacent to a wall. No locked doors, and no different in terms of privacy than is men ducking into laneways. This is one of those issues that warrants travelling to see how other countries do it. I’ll happily go on a (paid!) world ‘public toilet’ rekke!

There are public toilets scattered around the city, they are closed because of the junkie problem as DCC and the Garda don’t want to manage them. So DCC are happy to pass the problem into business owners.

For those of us who need toilets in the City on a regular basis you get to know which ones are good and free. But For tourists and those up from the country its a disgrace that it’s so difficult.

Can we still expect people to go into large department stores and Universities just to be Human? And in some cases pay also?

It’s a disgrace that there are none available. There’s 2 under our streets that I can think of, but our society, and our cities finances are in such a state that we’ll never re-open them.

What kind of City, or Country do we have that we fear letting people go about their business for free because others might abuse the premesis? I’ve cleaned those toilets, i’ve used those toilets.

If we actually had local government someone should do something about it. Instead we have overpaid city mangagers who in their laxed, unregulated way, are now pissing away money on the mistakes and theivery of failed developers. They are literally taking the ability to piss from us.

Ridiculous idea. Businesses in the city have enough problems with anti-social behaviour without opening up their facilities to general public. Junkies are allowed do as they want with little or no consequences. They have destroyed the city.

I think it’s unfair of DCC to expect this to be honest. If there is an accident on the premises the business will be liable. At least paying custom goes towards the cost of insurance premiums. There are special cases where I think it should be at the owners discretion

I worked in a bookies for a while and even the paying customers WRECKED the facilities. I can only imagine if it was a free for all how disgusting the toilets in restaurants/pubs would be.

Seems it was a problem in Joyce’s time too: “He crossed under Tommy Moore’s roguish finger. They did right to
put him up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for
women. Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. “

I’ve worked in a hotel on harcourt street and couldn’t imagine if we were legally obliged to open the doors to hundreds of people all night. Bit unfair to ask businesses to pay for the cleaning when they’re not the ones making the money. Having lavatories is the cost of business if you serve food or alcohol but if you’re not getting their business, you shouldn’t be absorbing costs. In most cases if you go in and ask politely its fine. So lets just keep it that way

I think it is a great idea, as long as the businesses are compensated fairly and allowances are made for extra security.
BUT..I do think “they” should be able to afford to reopen a lot of the older public toilets. If they made sure they were staffed with security (not just some older lady, but someone who is trained to deal with anti-social behaviour) and had live CCTV cameras inside (obviously not in the stalls) linked to the Gardai observation post, and you had to pay 40cents or something to use the toilets. They should start to pay for themselves once people trust them enough to use them regularly. If a huge city like London can do it, why can’t we??
If they have the ultraviolet lights and security attendants and live CCTV, the toilets would not attract a lot of the anti-social behaviour they used to have because it just wouldn’t be worth the hassle, the main reason they attracted problems before was because they were an easy place to hide away.
And the local businesses (especially the larger places like McDonalds etc, who probably already have to deal with a lot of non customers coming in to use the toilet) could also help support the costs as it could help their business in a lot of cases I would imagine.
I would also like to see public toilets and changing and shower facilities reopened in Phoenix Park. The huge number of people now using the park for exercise means there is a real need (the govt and the HSE should be supporting this as they will save money the fitter people are) but especially to improve accessibility to the park for older people, pregnant women or those with disabilities, as at present even those with a relatively strong bladder can find themselves in difficulties.

Yes. But only if they leave their name and address so the business owner can go around their place sometime and take a dump too. Fair is fair.

Gov can’t do anything right, public toilet issues country wide not just Dublin. Asking business to open their door not the answer, doing the job right would be better & stop wasting our money. The few loos we have you wouldn’t dare enter. Disgrace.

Brown Thomas aren’t going to like that rule.

They should but DCC should not be relying on them to do so. It’s scandalous that DCC parks have no toilet facilities for instance. Numerous Fingal parks have toilets located beside playgrounds for instance.

“The general situation in Ireland with regard to public conveniences is a national disgrace, it’s not just Dublin” – totally agree with this comment above. Many smaller towns seem to have no public conveniences – it’s just too bad if you have a bad bladder!! It’s very difficult to walk into a pub or restaurant to use their toilets without buying anything. Surely there have to be ways of keeping “undesirables” out of toilets even if one has to pay a small charge for using them. This seems to be yet another case of the innocent majority suffering because of the bad behaviour of a minority.

A mother and baby should not have to enter a busy bar in Dublin city centre to use a toilet,it’s a disgrace and unfair.shame on our government

For all the talk of people with kids, and others with bladder problems -the whole reason this is being raised at all is because the city streets reek of urine at the weekends – if all the men who regularly relieve themselves on the streets (and it is almost always men), could use the toilets in the pubs where they drink, the city would be a much better place. I don’t know why the guards turn a blind eye to it, temple bar in particular is disgusting after midnight.

exactly!! was out with my kid 1 day & none would let her use the toilet! SHE WAS 6 YRS OLD! ended up wetting herself never forget it

thankfully i have never been refused to use the toilets even in a supermarket with my daughter who has sastitis in her bladder, which if i made her hold it it would be extremly painful .. so in some circumstances yes i think people should be allowed to use them.

This rule is already in force in some European cities, but those cities are not infested with junkies and drunks to the same extent as Dublin is

Not sure why this is needed. It’s much easier to walk into a pub in Ireland and use the toilet than a pub in say, France, where I’ve been shouted at many times for simply walking into the bathroom to wash my hands before ordering food! Businesses usually only start getting fussy late at night, when things start getting a little rowdier.

A toilet is a basic service offered to paying customers, and it ought to be at the business’s discretion to allow anyone else in.

Emergency Reasons I:E if a baby is involved then yes.

I cannot believe that some would even consider the possibility of opening their facilities to the public.This litigation society we live in is rife with chancers.I would imagine that there are many a solicitor who would be absolutely ecstatic at the possibility of loads of money flowing into their coffers as a result of an endless stream of compensation claims for ‘accidents’ in the toilet of this and that company.You would have to be crazy to even consider the notion.

I agree the old toilets probably aren’t suitable for current usage but the spaces themselves should be renovated and put into use as small shops or galleries or whatever. Crazy that they are all locked up.

If you really got to go then you should be let go…

You’ll have the Claim Brigade , jumping with joy or should I say Slip sliding away?I bet Councillors are getting their wage to show up and pass byelaws, and a budget once a year. How Many councils have we in the biggest capital, of the world? We should make Councillors a voluntary position, with just expenses and you’ll see who’s in it for the money!

it’s a joke having to walk to the likes of the jervis, ilac an stephen’s green shopping centres if you want to use the bathroom .

It should of course be the businesses’ own decision as to whom they should let use their facilities. In some cases, such as banks or other premises where there is a security risk by allowing people access to restricted areas of the building, it would be totally impractical for them to provide access to toilet facilities. Also, nightclub revellers may not be the best people to allow on hotel premises etc. late at night.

Nevertheless, it is generally best practice to allow non-customers use your facilities where possible. Remember a non-customer is always a potential customer. In any of the restaurants or shops I have worked in over the years, unless we felt particularly uncomfortable, anyone who had the courtesy to ask, was alloiwed to use the toilet facilities!

Why not stick a 10 or 20 cent charge on it? Most of the public wouldn’t mind paying a nominal amount if they needed to go, and it would give businesses a way to get an extra few bob into the coffers in a tough aul time.

Who is going to clean them??
My toilets are for CUSTOMERS ONLY

Why should they ,I Wouldnt with all the druggies about ,every other city has public toilets this will be another excuse for property tax for facility in areas they will never put in

So why do businesses who are barely staying open have to provide toilets when DCC are wasting money on junkets? Will DCC pay the damages when there are spurious claims? Will DCC send a team of cleaners in to sort out the shop’s toilets every evening?
Don’t think so.

In the shop I work the toilets are back of house so we can’t really have people wandering around there for security and insurance purposes.

i have been refused toilet stops even though i have crohns disease – here example – getting hearing aids, they refused to let me use toilet as it was down stairs and i was on walking sticks, have a neurodegenerative disorder. had to try cross a road, to the shop opposite, up the escalator, along the top floor, down two steps and finally the toilet, then i had to wall along top floor after going up a few steps then down the escalator, cross the road and in to get my hearing aid fixed i am 59yrs and this is the problem with ireland, no sense, no sense…by the way i thought it was a law that no one could be refused a pee/poop stop? sue em!!!

Nice metaphoric microcosm of our economic recolonisation.
Not enough money, eh. We have the labour(half million on standby), materials(hardly a shortage of blocks, mortar and wavin pipes)and DCC must have sufficient public spaces…but no money. We’re too busy throwing it on a bonfire to warm the cockles of unsecured bondholders flinty cardial pumps.
And its only starting..
Look around folks, empty houses and increasing homelessness, empty wards and idle or emigrating trained nurses..crowding schools and idle or exiting tax-payer-trained teachers..
The Euro is inappropriate to our insular economics, it facilitates extraction of resources while providing Beverly Hills delusionary superiority complexes to our new ascendancies. But we’re still too hypnotised by the numerologists to see real economic facts; and get dyno-rod to clear the pro-cyclical slurry-ball and pull the chain on our blocked system. Can ye not catch the stench off the porridge of scour they’re feeding you daily?

I’ve seen this idea work really well in Richmond, London. There is a payback for the business as customers will use the business in the future. A little blue sticker on the window allows people to know who participates in this system. very popular with families with children. I think it could work and would be delighted to see it.

but I need to pooooooo ;~;

Public toilets used to work fine when there were caretakers in them. As for the junkie problem, site the needle exchange and methadone clinics outside the city centre, and give them clean places to shoot up, and they won’t have to use toilets.
In Japan, by the way, every department store – the big cheap ones and the rich fancy ones – has toilets available, and everyone knows where they are. Don’t know if they get any state subvention; I don’t think so, I think the toilets are part of their way of attracting customers.

Great in theory but I work in a Pharmacy and our lockers and coat rack are in the disabled toilet in the back, past the dispensary an the room where the cash is kept (some in a safe, about a grand not). We let some elderly people and young kids in at our discretion, but being forced to provide a totally unrestricted public toilet? They can take a running jump with that.

Disgrace

Yes they should.

C’mon journal some better polls please, this is shit !!!

I taught pubs has to leave people use there wc wheather they buy anything or not . hense the word public house

Pubs should be required fund public toilets in Dublin.