The inhabitants of Les Libertés are calling for a football pitch to provide a “safe, healthy and fun space” for young people in the neighborhood.
Children and adults from various sports clubs are holding a rally outside Dublin City Council offices today to highlight their desperate need for a pitch for training and matches.
They want Dublin City Council to make room for land at the council’s underused depot site in Marrowbone Lane.
Cllr Máire Devine told Independent.ie: “We know drug addiction is increasing year by year among young people because they have nowhere to go.
“We need to build a world for the next leaders of our community. We want young people to feel safe.
“It’s an ongoing fight from a very vocal and passionate community that I’m proud to be born into and raised in. We need space, there’s no argument in that.
“The population is 50,000 and continues to grow. We will have to perpetuate the zone. We need green and open play spaces and land for the next generation,” the Sinn Féin adviser added.
There are no local playgrounds for organized competitive sport for the 8,500 children of Les Libertés. This includes football, GAA, rugby and boxing clubs.
Green space per person in the area is 86% below the EU average, and local GAA club St Kevin’s ranked last out of Dublin’s 93 clubs for access to green playing space .
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Máire Devine supports calls for a new playground for Freedoms
“There is nowhere to go to play football, so we have to make sure that we give the next generation a place in the community for their physical health and well-being,” said Máire.
“We need open spaces for people to enjoy their lives. There will be less unity, less community, less security and less growth without it.
Labor adviser Darragh Moriarty pointed to “the huge explosion of young girls and women playing sports”.
“It’s growing, you have young boys and girls playing now, but there’s a lack of facilities. You have to plan for the future. The pitches were supposed to be delivered years ago and they haven’t summer,” he said.
“Marrowbone Lane is oversized and underused and we have offered to install a full size football pitch.
“It would be two-thirds the size of a GAA pitch, but they can still do training and games for minors. You could have GAA, rugby and football on this ground.
“The district of freedoms is densely built. There are so many people living in flats and flats, they have no back gardens, no front gardens, nothing.
“There are so many sports clubs in the area without facilities. We need a community sports field and we need the council to support the Liberties. I don’t think that’s too much to ask,” he added.
Cllr Michael Pidgeon said children are “losing their friends” because there is “nowhere to play”.
“We need this green space. There is a young population and we need an ideal space for them.
“There are a lot of accommodations around this area and the vast majority don’t have a garden and you have to prepare something for them,” he added.
