Council installs portable toilets for outdoor summer

Mullingar Kinnegad Municipal District has installed portable toilets at a number of locations in the town and at local recreation sites for the summer months to encourage outdoor socialising.

Portable toilets have been installed at Mullingar Town Park and Blackhall car park, as well as at the greenway car park at Newbrook and at Ballinea playground.

For people visiting Lough Owel toilets have been installed at Portnashangan and Tullaghan, while toilets have also been installed at Ladestown and Tudenham on the shores of Lough Ennell.

According to a notice on the council’s website, the toilets will be in place until at least the end of August.

The new mayor of the municipal district, Cllr Aoife Davitt first asked the local authority to install public toilets at outdoor locations last summer. She says that they will help encourage people to socialise outdoors in the coming months.

“I am delighted to see them. With outdoor dining and everything else it’s good to see that people can access toilets, especially for people with young children or people who are out and about.

“We want to make Mullingar a place where people can come to. They can go to our lakeside amenities or come into town and do their shopping, have their bite to eat and very importantly have access to a public toilet.

“You need to have all of the facilities. There is no point in having one part of the chain. We have to have more joined up thinking so that people who are on the greenway for a cycle and want stop in Mullingar for a coffee or a bite to eat can access those facilities. It is nice to see them,” she said.

Cllr Davitt also reiterated her call for the local authority to install a covered shelter at the diving boards at Portnashangan for the large numbers of local people and visitors who swim there every day.

“I went to meet some of the people from the Lakeland Chilly Dippers there about a year and half ago. It was a horrible day. It was raining. The wind was beating across the lake. They were showing me where they had to get changed.

There is no privacy whether for man, women or child. It wouldn’t even have to be that large,” she said.