Dr. Naomi Feely:

That is something we are looking at. There have been a number of positive initiatives in the UK in this area. We are looking at what international examples exist. It is critical that we are not just looking at a focus on playgrounds. We need to look at the whole public realm, at how we design our planning and at how ensure we have child-friendly approaches. An area that is particularly interesting that the committee may want to consider is the Vienna model. We can see the incorporation of child-friendly approaches in the Vienna model of social housing. One thing that struck me in the Vienna model is that apartment buildings are only built two to three storeys high so that people can look over and see children playing and can hear them which enables children to play independently. When we looked at planning guidelines and apartment guidelines in Ireland, we saw a kind of approach where there needs to be consideration of noise coming up and how that might disturb residents. We need to be thinking about things in more of a growth mindset around enabling children to participate and to have lots of different opportunities to play, be safe and have access.