Family had 'very disappointing' St Patrick's Day in Tramore over facilities

A young family had a stressful St Patrick's Day in Tramore this week after discovering that the public facilities were shut. The family were only a few of the thousands of attendees on the day.

Councillor Eamon Quinlan shared the details at the March meeting of the Metropolitan. He said: "I had a personally very disappointing conversation with a family who came quite a distance to attend the St. Patrick's Day parade in Tramore, specifically so they could bring their children to the amusements and arcades afterwards."

"The reason why it was disappointing was because the public toilets on Strand Road were closed." 

The family tried to use the bathrooms of several local businesses, as did many other visitors. 

Cllr Quinlan went on: "Her son, a small child, waiting to go into a private business toilet had waited so long that he unfortunately wet himself.

"The family then had to leave, had to go to Tesco to buy new pants and at that stage, they were very much done with Tramore." 

The Fianna Fáil councillor requested that the facilities be open to the public earlier in the year for large events. He said: "We should have had public toilets open on a day when we knew thousands of people would be congregating in an around that area of Tramore."

Paul Johnston, Senior Engineer at Waterford City and County Council, responded: "The Prom, generally, is open but the Strand doesn't open until May but we'll certainly look at that in the future opening that prior."