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Update 13 August 2014: Since this article was published, one of the public toilets in Dublin has been demolished. Read more here.
EVERY SINGLE ONE of them stands locked and empty now, but just a few decades ago Dublin’s public toilets – or, to give them their official name, public conveniences – were an integral part of the city’s landscape.
If you have visited Dublin even once, you have probably walked past one. You may not have noticed the wrought iron gate; the steps that lead below ground; the once-gleaming white and blue tiles.
With some, the piles of discarded drinks bottles and urban detritus would catch your eye before the beautifully-curved walls do. Others, with their neat redbrick walls, blend in perfectly with their surroundings.
These once-busy facilities may as well be invisible, for all the attention they receive from passers-by.
The underground toilet at Kevin St, just off New Street South. Pic: Aoife Barry/TheJournal.ie
Public Convenience
The buildings stretch from Harolds Cross to Howth, including areas like Mountjoy Square, Glasnevin, Sandymount, Terenure, Dolphin’s Barn, and Infirmary Road. The O’Connell St facility was demolished when the street was redeveloped. These are relics of a different time, a different Ireland.
Hugh Coughlan, who works for Dublin City Council, told TheJournal.ie that the capital’s public toilets have a long history. Their journey from use to disuse reflects how Irish society has evolved over the past 100 years.
In the Ireland of the late 19th century, not every home had an indoor loo – or even a toilet at all. Cars were not as widely available, and people walked or cycled around the city. It took longer, therefore, to go from one part of the city to another. Add to this the smaller number of restaurants and cafés, the absence of yet-to-be-imagined supermarkets, and you can see why public conveniences needed to be, well, so convenient.
As time moved on, particularly in the mid-20th century, the use of public toilets began to change. More businesses opened that offered facilities to customers; more people began to use cars; the use of public conveniences began to fall to fewer groups of people.
Staff
Each toilet block required staff – at one stage there were up to 400 people working as toilet attendants in the capital – and they, of course, needed to be paid. But by the 1980s, Ireland was in the grip of a recession, and Dublin City Council was looking at ways of tightening its belt. Such buildings, which had begun to attract drug users and other antisocial behaviour, were a drain on resources.
Said Coughlan:
There were at least – approximately – 70 toilets in the 50s and 60s, and then it started to flip from the 70s onwards, as restaurants and bars and the shopping centre model started to emerge. They started to be less utilised, particularly on the outskirts of the city.
The gateway into the public convenience on Kevin St. Pic: Aoife Barry/TheJournal.ie
“In the late 70s and early 80s, finances were quite tight,” said Coughlan of the council. “We were in real recessionary times. The [employment] moratoriums were introduced as well.”
It became apparent that a lot of these were difficult to manage and also expensive to manage. There were issues raised with gardaí in terms of the facilities. Some of them didn’t necessarily lend themselves to personal safety.
It seemed to make sense, for all of these reasons, to close these toilets. The doors of Victorian and Edwardian buildings, once used by large numbers of now long-dead men and women, were locked. Some became used as storerooms, but the majority lie empty.
“People tend to jump on the anti social side, but that is one element of it,” said Coughlan of the closures. “There was the changing dynamic of the city as well.”
As recently as 1990, there were still 33 staff working as public toilet attendants, and a number of higher-profile facilities remained open for part of the 90s, such as those on O’Connell St and Stephen’s Green. But these too were eventually closed.
Ballsbridge public toilets. Photo: Infomatique/Flickr
Bye Laws and construction
The Dublin City Council Bye Laws on Public Conveniences from 1899 under the Public Health (Ireland) Act 1878 give a look at what was allowed in these conveniences.
People could be fined up to £5 in court for committing one of a number of offences while using the facilities. These included:
Males aged over five were not allowed into the women’s toilets, while females of any age were not allowed to enter the men’s toilets.
A look at the minutes of the Municipal Council of the City of Dublin from 1900 gives a glimpse into how these toilets came to be constructed. The Public Health Committee was the group responsible for organising the construction, and in the case of the Parkgate St and Sherrard St toilets, for example, they submitted a report on putting out the tenders for the buildings.
The toilets were to be underground, and the tenders specified that preference would be given to contractors undertaking to use Irish material in the construction. They received four tenders for the sanitary work, ranging from £392 to £513, and went for the cheapest, which was tendered by John L Smallman.
For the building work, they received just one tender, from William Gray (£1,645), who had previously worked on the Berkeley Road underground convenience, and, said the report, “turning out an excellent class of work”.
Spencer Harty was the city engineer and surveyor in 1900. The committee specified to both men whose tenders were accepted that they should only employ ‘legitimate labour, and pay not less than the minimum standard rate of wages’. Smallman wrote back, on 10 April 1900, from his premises on 48 Lower Sackville St (O’Connell St), while WM Gray wrote from his base in Drumcondra on 9 April 1900. Both accepted the job.
A urinal on Ormond Quay, 1969. Copyright National Library of Ireland
In the 1899 minutes of the Municipal Council of Dublin City, the Public Health Committee said that "urgent representations" had been made to them about the "necessity of providing sanitary accommodation for the use of the public on the North Circular Road, in the neighbourhood of Sherrard St".
Alderman Doyle and Sir Charles Cameron inspected the locality and recommended that an underground convenience be constructed at the intersection by the Upper and Lower Sherrard St, 'Belvidere' (sic) Place and 'Belvidere' (sic) Avenue.
They decided on this "after mature consideration", and were "satisfied that the construction of an underground convenience at this place will supply a long-felt want". This was only to be for males only, and they anticipated it "will prove a big success".
On 24 May 1899, it was decided that the two WCs, four urinal stalls and two washhand basins, as well as the attendants' room, would cost an estimated £750. According to P Dowd, the chairman, the average weekly revenue from the underground conveniences already established in the city was £685, which was sufficient "to defray the cost of attendance and maintain the urinals and lavatories in proper order and, in addition, leaves a small balance to credit".
The minutes of the Municipal Council in March 1900 show that a planned underground convenience for New Street, similar to the one on College St, would cost an estimated £870 to construct. Spencer Harty recommended that it had to be kept 4ft above the level of the street, as otherwise it would be flooded.
When the Public Health Committee put out a tender for urinals in 1865, they estimated it would cost £200. They received five tenders, two from Glasgow companies and one from a Kirkintillock company, the others from Dublin.
They received a letter from the Glasgow company, emphasising that their quote was the lowest, that the "class of work we supply is inferior to none" and that they employ "a very large number of Irishman in our works", so the "goods will be of Irish manufacture".
Another report from the Public Health Commiteee in the 1860s concerned the sketch plans of a 'chalet de nécessité', which included 'a kiosque for the sale of newspapers'. The committee recommended permission be given, as they "are of the opinion that it will encourage the use of the chalets for the general public". It appears that people's bathroom reading habits perhaps haven't changed much in the past 150 years...
The future
A side view of the underground toilets at Kevin St. Pic: Aoife Barry/TheJournal.ie
Could any of the public conveniences be opened again in the future? Never say never. The toilet at Stephen's Green is owned by the Office of Public Works, but could potentially be opened to the public if the City Council take another licence agreement on it.
The Lansdowne toilet is just used as a storeroom, while the College Green toilet has been used for air noise monitoring, and there were "advanced" plans to build an overground structure. But due to the Luas interconnector line, those plans were scrapped. Still, there remains the possibility that it could be used as a café, with a number of interested groups having contacted the City Council about it in the past, and "advanced discussions" having taken place. At one stage, it was even used as a site for an art exhibition by Dorothy Cross.
When the last of the buildings were closed down, the council put automated public conveniences in place. They were initially seen as a cost-effective solution, with no staff needed. But the jury is out as to whether they really were as cost-effective as envisaged.
The one on O’Connell Bridge, for example, had to be removed due to "serious issues", including drug use.
What next?
The side of the Kevin St underground convenience. Pic: Aoife Barry/TheJournal.ie
Because of the lack of public facilities in the city, the council has developed a policy document outlining three measures. These are:
With the latter, the council has already been in touch with around 10 interested parties, and is hoping to run a pilot scheme. The users of such public toilets today would mainly be tourists, people visiting rather than living in Dublin.
There are no firm plans, but the council does get expressions of interest about some of the public toilet buildings from time to time. The doors are shut, but it seems the options are certainly open.
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Looks like the financial faith in Ireland has been more than restored thanks to the efforts of this government and the patience of it’s people. This is excellent news. I look forward to an improved credit rating in the near future.
Your right, great news. Another step forward to recovery. Slow steady progress is all anybody can hope for.
It’s more debt that will force inflation! ………… How much more debt do we need ?
Why not buy them ??? Sure its such a safe bet. In any other investment there is chance of losing money.
But not with irish bonds nooooooo. We will pay out even if it means raping our own people
Why if the bond was 4 times over subscribed would you not lower the interest rate? I don’t get it
Good question … I also would like to understand that.
Maybe the rate is fixed before the auction, and they went for a high enough one to be sure it attracts enough people and doesn’t look like a failure?
That’s a brilliant question. Brian can you help us out again.
Presuming this is a zero coupon bond (no annual payments), it’s essentially a note saying “we will pay you €1000 in 10 years time”. The price the market is willing to pay for this dictates the interest rate, if I’m only willing to pay €800 for the deal then it’s a 25% interest rate over 10 years, which is 2.2% annually. Presumably selling more would have made them worth less, increasing the interest rate (also confidence might go down if we sold too many).
Thanks Brendan.
There is one thing I still don’t get. You explained that the price of the bonds (and thus interest rate) depends on the demand, and therefore if Ireland had sold more of them the interest rate would have been higher, right?
If I get that right, I don’t understand how it makes sense to say that there was an demand for 12 billions … As the 12 billions on offer would have been for something different than what was sold (bond with higher interest rate). And if lets say 12 billions were on the table for potential 5% bonds, and maybe by offering 5.5% we could have raised 20 billions?
You know what I a getting at? If you change the quantity sold you change the interest rate, so how can you say that for a given quantity that was sold with a given interest rate, the demand was actually higher?
Boris
Ireland (NTMA) was hoping to borrow €3bn. Various different investing institutions made offers of how much they were prepared to lend and at what interest rates. All offers totalled €12bn so in theory NTMA could have borrowed that much if it had wanted to. Instead it chose to borrow to the tune of €5bn at the best interest rates on offer.
I’m not really sure why they chose to borrow an extra €2bn above what was hoped for – my view is that if we had waited until that money was needed we might have got it at a better interest rate.
That’s my understanding of the situation anyway – maybe someone more knowledgeable than me can correct me if I’m wrong…
Ok, makes sense!
What exactly is going on here? What are these bonds and who wants to buy them? Does it mean that we get rid of the debt and just pay the interest instead? Can someone explain? Also I’m looking for facts, not opinion with no actual information.
This should explain everything, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifecta
Regards,
Adeabyo
Thanks Adebayo, but i’m none the wiser. We’re probably talking about “donkeys” here in the financial markets, not races horses.
Anyone else? People seem to know what they are talking about here. Could someone explain?
In all seriousness. I would love a little refresher in all this bonds business myself as a lot of people just read the misinformed comments and regurgitate.
They are Sovereign Bonds issued at 10 years. This means that we have as most country’s normally do and we did up to September 2010 went to the market saying that we are looking to borrow money for 10 years. Every year we will pay a coupon or better known as the interest only back to the lender and at the end of the 10 years repay the full €5 billion we originally borrowed. What normally happens is we borrow another €5 billion to roll over the debt. Anytime we borrow this way we add to our national debt. This does not affect out existing amount of debt, it’s still there and growing :(
The reason the lending Is such big news is that we are borrowing money from the markets (Private investors, pension funds, banks and other such institution) instead of a direct loan from the EU or IMF where they instruct us on how the money is spent. When we borrow privately they for have any direct oversight in how we spend the money.
Hope that provides some clarity :-)
Kev – We’re spending about a billion euro a month more than we’re raising in taxes. We have to make up the gap by borrowing.
Before the bailout, the cost of borrowing got crazy, which effectively meant we had no choice but to go to the IMF, EU and ECB. They loaned us the money which kept public services running.
NTMA has now been able to borrow in the markets, which (probably) means that we won’t need a second bailout. We still have to pay it back eventually, but not for 10 years, at which point we will probably issue new bonds.
What we do have to pay every year is the interest. That looks to be somewhere less than €215 million a year. The bailout interest rate is 5.8%, so borrowing the same amount from the Troika would theoretically cost us €290 million a year.
The rest is opinion :)
It does Brian (and Emily), thank you very much (judging by my red thumbs this site is becoming less and less about actual information, nor do people want to seek it).
I’m assuming that inflation will mean that we would have to pay less in ten years time? But we would have returned to the markets, so we would actually have an economy at that stage hopefully? In saying that, and please correct me if i’m wrong but isn’t this whole “selling debts to lenders at interest” thing creating the bubble in the markets that is currently screwing us over?
Also Emily are you saying we’d have the option to push the bonds furter down the line in ten years by doing something similar? I think i remember hearing that the UK are still paying off WW1 and WW2 debts today, is this the same story?
Great work Stoksey
We’ll have to pay back €5bn, but you’re right, inflation may have eroded that. If we have inflation of 2.5% a year, that will only be worth about €3.9bn in today’s money. (Only!)
And yes, debt is regularly refinanced – in fact it has to be unless you can run budget surpluses. So we will borrow the same €5bn in 2023, or slightly earlier. If the economy’s prospects are better, then it should be at a better (i.e. lower) interest rate.
Lenders don’t actually want their capital back, except where they can get a better return for their perceived risk elsewhere.
Thanks very much Emily you have made all this much clearer to me.
Thanks Adebayo and likewise to Emily for a fantastic explanation.
But look Ignoreland!!! People reading these comments who would have an opinion without actually reading any information themselves, might actually learn something today thanks to Emily and Brians explanations.
For the benefit of readers who may not have seen it before…
Cheers Gavan
I did! thanks guys!
Bank of Japan, the US Fed and British Central Bank are lending at record low levels. ‘Investors’ borrow from them to lend to high yielding government bonds like Irish ones. A no-brainer, except it all it does is create another bubble and ultimately someone (typically your average tax payer) will pay!
Piling debt on debt. Sure why not. Those lavish salaries and pensions need a good servicing.
Well to be fair every state sells bonds as part of economic system. But like any investment it is a risk unlike here where your 100% assured of a profit
Do you know even the most basic concept of economic management? Practically every country in the world borrows money to run their economies and the debt that they take on is rolled forward over time. Debt is then reduced by inflation over a period of time and also by growth.
And by the way, as well as the lavish salaries and pensions you talk about, the money we borrow also goes to pay the average wages that pay for nurses, teachers, guards and many more essential services as well. As a country we can’t afford not to borrow at the moment. And its better than we borrow independently from the markets as opposed to a bailout and the restrictions that come with that.
No worries Kev.
You’ve nailed the issue of growth and borrowing on the head. The only way any society can pay down debt which has interest is by hoping to inflate away the real cost of it in the future. Being aboe to get money lent to us on the financial markets doesn’t guarantee that our economy will improve but some would take the confidence shown by other to lend tony as a sign that they believe we are a good bet to grow.
There is a important place for opinion in the comments section as long as its backed by facts but most important is that when people ask for some
clarity they get it.
Have a great day Kev
@ The Irish Bull – Bond selling essentially provides cashflow. If we don’t sell bonds in the international markets, the only income the state is the tax take, and a large chunk of the tax take comes in at one point in the financial year. I honest don’t any Irish government, composed of any party, would be able to keep the country running if it told it’s employees and service providers that they would get paid once a year, a year in arrears. If you have an alternative solution that does not involve selling bonds or regularly borrowing from an outside source, there’s a well-paid job and possibly a NObel prize waiting for you.
I see alot from party HQ are here today.
Yawn. Such lazy commentary. Why is that anybody who thinks that some of the government’s action are good is automatically labelled by people like you? You could be accused of the same for a different party!
Ultimately the fact the Ireland can borrow again in the market and not have to avail of a second bailout and the restrictions that come with that is good. No matter who was in government this was eventually what they were aiming for.
No Jim merely commenting on the red thumbs recieved by the first post.As for getting back into the markets why wouldn’t we?our government has proved beyond doubt no matter whether legitimate or otherwise all debts will be repaid.
@ Jenny – give it a rest, if you’ve nothing to say except blow raspberries..
Q a 2nd wave of property madness and sky high prices soon.
Somebody in the Sunday Independent just got a stiffy
Not really. If it’s a major success that the country can borrow at 4.3%, then there’s sod all chance of banks being able to make any money giving out mortgages at 4.5%. They really need to be able to lend at 6%, and that means about another quarter coming off property prices.
And that’s partly why they don’t want to write new mortgages. It undermines the capital values of the ones they have.
Ponzi fiscal scam and were still paying the price for this rip off. Biggest robbery of a nations coffers by the present political and business establishment ran up a €64 billion and counting.Euro being internal devalued in Ireland. since some group cleaned out one of the northern banks of £26 million was a halfpenny place in comparison.
Al
Face it . You’re economically and fiscally illiterate and can only resort to silliness when good news like this comes along!
@ Al – exactly what I wrote to Jenny above – If you’ve nothing to add except slurs and unfounded and uninformed rumours, then please give it a rest.
Not just economically and fiscally illiterate, but gramatically illiterate too…
Nicholas,
These bonds are being bought by the ECB to try and give the perception that the Irish economy is returning to a fiscal normality. If you can’t see that we’ll your loss.
Peter,
Only person who can’t see a Ponzi derived ECB bond buying scam and the illiterate fiscal falsehood of such an action is yourself.
@ Al – oh dear…
1. Where exactly are you sourcing your information? Have you a NWO cigarette-smoking man hidden int eh shadows. Could the rest of us just not handle the truth?
2. Why do the identities of buyers of these bonds make a difference to the yield that we’ve received on the bonds? No whatsoever.
A little less conspiracy theorising and a little more understanding of the subject at hand would do wonders for your credibility.
STOP PRESS: The DCC is cleaning the streets of Dublin to give residents the false perception that the streets are being cleaned. Don’t be a gullible fool and fall for their illusions. Just because the streets have been cleaned doesn’t mean that the streets are cleaner than before they were cleaned. Um…..?
Can you see the flaw in my argument here, Al?
Wonder
ryan o ,Frank and were jammin they must strangly not be available for comment on this ha !
The names Bond….. James Bond
As a farmer I would like to ask is inflation guaranteed ? I am only asking because in my particular occupation my wages from 2000 to 2003 were copperfastened with no indexlinking and now the sector as a whole is being “given” 10% less than what was set in 2000 which means for the next whatever years the sector as a whole is operating on an income that is 10% less than it was in 2000 to 2003. Although the details are sketchy it also seems that there may be a reduction (modulation) into the future !
The only way I can keep step with inflation is to increase the cost of my produce ………. that means I will have to get an increase of between 10 and 20 % in the price of my food to compensate ….. this can’t happen in a country with children already fainting in the classroom from hunger ! .
I’m not greedy but how am I going to survive without deflation? and this is not a “poor me rant” I don’t really care about money …I hate the bloody stuff actually but I would like to think that I could keep my children warm !
have your say