Cork City Council must commit to opening new public toilet facilities, People Before Profit-Solidarity Councillor Brian McCarthy has said.

On Newstalk Breakfast, Cllr McCarthy said the public toilet facilities are in a “pretty bad situation”.

“If you look at the way it used to be in the city up until the late 80s we had 14 public toilets in the city centre,” he said.

“But there were problems with anti-social behaviour and instead of trying to deal with the problem, they just shut them down.

“So now we have only three in the entire city centre and one of them, no one knows about it.

“This isn't something that's difficult to provide - we don't need to invent the public toilet.”

Cllr McCarthy said the supports are already in place to get these public toilets up and running.

“There's [a public toilet] in the shopping centre and a trader contacted me last year and they said it was filthy - it wasn't being maintained,” he said.

“I contacted the council, they spoke to the company maintaining it and it was cleaned.

“That's been done over time - so when there are problems, they can be easily dealt with – it didn't have to be shut down, you know.”

A public toilet on a market square in Nuremberg, Germany in 2015. Picture by: Daniel Karmann/DPA/PA Images

Anti-social behaviour can cause issue but Cllr McCarthy is certain that security measures can be put in place to help with this.

“This is done in cities and towns all over the country where we have public toilets that are maintained and they have measures to prevent antisocial behaviour,” he said.

“You can bring in cameras, you can bring in regular monitoring, you can bring in security teams.

“There are public toilets that do not have anti-social behaviour problems because of the measures that have been put in place but it's the city management who have to do this and we have to look at the impact this is having.”

Cllr McCarthy said public toilets are not a luxury, they are an absolute necessity.

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Members of the public queuing to use the public toilets beside St Stephens Green Dublin. 29/03/2021 Photo:Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie