Dr. Maria O'Dwyer:

I thank the Deputy for that good question. We see discrepancies. We see them in relation to rural-urban, as well as related to class. Where we try to implement a project nationally we see that it will not mean the same thing in different places and in the interpretation of it. If one looks aspects such as breastfeeding supports, for example, we take a population approach to how we promote breastfeeding. However, if we gather data in, for example, the Traveller community, that data will be automatically skewed by the information and supports Traveller mothers and parents are given and the traditional inheritance of low uptake of breastfeeding in that community. We are not, therefore, comparing like with like. Often, we look at statistics and think that they are way down when actually we have not looked at the contextual data.

Similarly, some interesting work was done on play and the use or uptake of baby and toddler groups. A survey in the late 1990s looked at play patterns through baby and toddler groups. There was a significant discrepancy between rural and urban, but there should have been. This is because in a rural environment, a baby and toddler group would be held in, for instance, a community hall. That setting is far removed from what they would have in cities. It is important to look at those types of things when looking at trends. It is important that the data allows us to spot those kinds of differences.

The pandemic shone a light on our misconception around play. We have always thought that children in the country played far more outdoors than children in the city but actually they do not. They are pretty much head-to-head at the moment. We are finding that children in country and rural areas spend a significant amount of time in cars, being driven to different places, such as to sports, whereas for children in the city there is a local mobility. We have had perceptions or misconceptions around play and child outcomes, or play as element and indicator of child outcomes. We have to be conscious of nuances around rural-urban, class and culture, and those different nuances and potential divides that exist in how we do things differently.