Proposed posh loos will cost a pretty penny!

A plan to roll out a network of posh toilets in tourist hot spots across the country is to pilot in Clifden – if a planning application gets the green light.

Tech entrepreneur John Nagle has applied to convert a shop on Courthouse Square in the Connemara town into upmarket commercial toilets, with six ‘U-Luu’ pods which will be contactless, fully automated and overseen by a “concierge”.

Mr Nagle told the Connacht Tribune that he came up with the idea while living for six years in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, where there is “quite an issue with finding western-style” public toilets.

The plan is to create a network of bathrooms, which will boast wheelchair accessible cubicle toilets as well as showers, in at least 27 towns and cities. Tourists and professional drivers will be offered a subscription to use the service across the country during their stay, with discounted rates to apply to pensioners and those with medical conditions.

A once-off fee to use the service will likely be in the region of €3, while a subscriber will be offered a cheaper rate of around €2 to relieve themselves.

“I was talking to this older gentleman the other day and he said John, I wouldn’t pay a few quid to have a widdle, and of course 99 per cent of men wouldn’t pay for this, but 99 women out of 100 would and that’s who we’re aiming at. We’re also targeting tourists – we’re planning to have facilities on all nine motorways.”

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now. Or you can download the digital edition by going to www.connachttribune.ie