From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Advocates for people with disabilities have highlighted flaws in the design of the new ‘Changing Places’ toilet facility in Salthill that was specially commissioned for people with disabilities.

Access for All Galway said they highlighted the mistakes last year to Galway City Council, which invested €135,600 in the facility at Ladies Beach.

Work began on an accessible toilet and shower facility in February 2022, and it was substantially completed some months later.

The Council told this newspaper earlier this month that it had not opened due to a number of outstanding ‘snags’.

But members of Access for All Galway’s Steering Group, Marian Maloney, Eamon Gibbons and Rose Foley, said it was “mistakes in design” rather than outstanding snags that have delayed the project.

Representatives of the organisation flagged these issues with City Hall last September.

“Problems highlighted included sinks so deep they’re inaccessible to people in wheelchairs; showering units that need two assistants to operate; a partitioning unit that is too big to manoeuvre; an automated code access number with no control as to who uses it; and a beach ramp so steep and uneven it was deemed unsafe for staff to even attempt to push a wheelchair down it,” the trio said in a statement.
This is a shortened preview version of this story. To read the rest of the article, see the February 24 edition of the Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.