What would make Ireland a better place to live in? More playgrounds, say children. Rosita Boland reports
The unfortunate reality of life for many children in modern Ireland is that getting out to play requires organisation by adults. The lack of outdoor facilities in urban areas and parental fears about traffic and security all contribute to restrictions on children.
According to the 2002 census, for instance, half of all primary-school children are now driven to school. In 1981, only one fifth of them were. With one million households in the State now owning at least one car there is a lot more traffic. The residential street, a traditional ad-hoc venue for urban outdoor play, is now often too busy and dangerous to allow children use it. And we're all a lot more suspicious of each other these days than we used to be. Parents no longer feel comfortable about their children playing unsupervised in public places.
On Monday, the Minister of State for Children, Brian Lenihan, will launch Ireland's first play policy. The report, prepared by the National Children's Office, is part of the National Children's Strategy, which was established in 2002. In 2000, Mary Hanafin, the then Minister of State with responsibility for children, put three questions to Irish children, via The Den TV show, school visits, and ads in the print media.
They were: Is Ireland a good place to grow up in? What's good about it? What would make it better? She got back 2,488 answers, from all around the country, and from all socio-economic backgrounds. Almost every child mentioned in their replies that they wanted more places where they could play.
"The adults hadn't thought of play as a big issue," explains Frances Spillane, director of the National Children's Office. "It's not that children need play full stop. It's that they need safe places to play, meaning unstructured play. There's quite a private industry now in play centres, where you pay in for a morning or afternoon, but the cost of this excludes many children. Unstructured play is what children do when you leave them alone."
As a direct result of the thousands of responses elicited from children, play and recreation were identified as focus areas for national government policy. The resulting report, entitled "Ready, Steady, Play", will be making a number of recommendations about implementing play policy. These include creating more child-friendly environments at the planning stage of new housing estates and flat complexes, such as making provision for safe cul-de-sacs, as well as playgrounds. They also focus attention on the need to make playgrounds accessible for disabled children, and to develop play opportunities for children in hospitals.
Anne O'Brien is a play development officer with Dublin City Council. She hopes to bring the report's recommendations to Dublin City Council in the next couple of months, and to draw together resources for Dublin, to make it a more child-friendly city. Playground space is a key issue in urban areas, where gardens are smaller and access to the countryside restricted.
"Dublin city has the best percentage of playgrounds per head of population than anywhere else in the country," O'Brien says. There are currently 59 playgrounds in the city, and many of them will be revamped in the near future. Perhaps surprisingly, given our recent national obsession with "compo culture", there were just four compensation claims for accidents in 2001 for all of Dublin city's playgrounds.
"The risk of accidents is not as high in playgrounds as it used to be, because all the concrete surfaces are gone now, and we follow European standards." O'Brien explains that in Dublin, the council provides its own insurance, and in rural areas, the smaller local authorities usually get it though insurance companies.
What about urban vandalism, from which many playgrounds have suffered in the past? O'Brien acknowledges that this has been a problem, but points out that long-term planning can be a solution.
"Vandalism can be reduced. If children are involved at a very young age in their community, then their attitude to their facilities will be much more positive. We want a situation that when plans are looked at for certain areas, such as schools, housing estates, flat complexes, that children will be part of the planning process."
O'Brien's brief is also to act as support and mentor to parents keen to start up play clubs and play activities in their local areas. Basic training will be given. The intention is to focus on disadvantaged areas first, where there are few existing public spaces for children to play.
One high-visibility and popular city-centre playground is in St Stephen's Green, where generations of children have climbed on slides and gone swinging. It has been closed since January, due to vandalism. Responsibility for St Stephen's Green recently transferred to the Office of Public Works. The OPW says that the playground "has reached the end of its natural lifespan and a complete renewal will be needed in the next few years". The OPW is currently awaiting delivery of parts from Germany to repair the equipment. They hope to reopen the playground in mid-April.
• The National Children's Office and Dublin City Council are holding a seminar, Muck and Magic in the Playground, on March 30th in St Catherine's Community and Sports Centre, Marrowbone Lane, Dublin 8, from 10.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. Local groups considering installing a play facility in their area are welcome. Telephone 086-8150995 or e-mail play@dublincity.ie
"I have noticed there are very many bars, restaurants, museums for adults to have a fun day out but there are no rollerblading parks or skateboarding parks for children like me to have fun.
People in my class have no play facilities. Please make it a law that builders must provide more space for a park and children's facilities and supply access to transport to the nearest shop and town centre.
Soon there will be no green left because of all the building going on. I used to love going for long walks in the convent if I was upset and then the nuns couldn't afford to pay for the land and now I've nowhere to go for walks when I'm upset and I'm having a hard year.
The builders are only interested in cutting down trees for new houses but they are not taking into account that each family is going to have two or three children on average and in a few years time there will be no facilities for those children.
The corporation are knocking down a tree because we made a swing on it but the only reason it is there is that there are no playgrounds.
Every time I go out on my skateboard, I hear some shout 'go skate somewhere else' or 'move it, I'm calling the gardaí'.
Where I live the only space to play was the park, with swings and slides. But the corporation took them all down, with no consideration for anyone but themselves, the park is now full of drug dealers."