The Government should introduce legislation to ensure that children living in apartment buildings can play in outdoor spaces, according to a leading international expert on the needs of children.
Prof Roger Hart, of the City University of New York, said the right to play was already provided for under Article 31 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Ireland has signed.
Prior to delivering a public lecture last night in Trinity College Dublin, he told The Irish Times that this was the only way to deal with the "arrogance" of apartment building management committees banning play.
"In new housing projects in the Docklands area, there are obviously problems where there's a percentage of social housing but a lot of the private dwellers don't have families and don't want noisy children playing.
"Most of the people moving in are singles who don't feel they have any responsibility to younger people," Prof Hart said. "The arrogance of thinking that you can live in a society where children don't have equal rights to public space is amazing."
He suggested that Ireland should be following the example of Sweden where any building that's a multiple dwelling for families is required to provide a play environment. "I was tripping over them all the time walking through Stockholm."
He also said that, with Ireland now becoming a multicultural society, "it's more important than ever that there are spaces where children can come together with other children in an open and free way, rather than in a programmed way".
Far too much of children's time was now "programmed" by their parents - whether it was spent in creches, music lessons or gym classes. "They're not playing with their peers out on the street and therefore not building a democratic culture."
He said the increasing privatisation of provision for children was creating patterns of segregation and exclusion, where "certain people had access and other people don't, such as in the controlled private spaces of shopping malls".
Children were being segregated by age even though it was clear that they "do much better in multi-grade schools" by learning from older children, and also being separated from adults because of parents' fear for their safety.
"Too many kids are kept indoors and left to communicate with their peers via the internet."
