New housing estates must be better planned to encourage children to walk or cycle to school, and to be able to play safely near their homes without risk from cars, while TV junk food advertising aimed at the under-12s should be banned, the Green Party said.
Publishing a new policy document, the Greens said society is becoming ever more unequal and is failing tens of thousands of children each year, threatening huge social costs in the future.
Criticising both the Government and local councils, the Greens said: "Too often, the road engineer has priority about how an estate is planned," said Dún Laoghaire TD Ciarán Cuffe, who added that developers should be forced by law to offer large open spaces with each development.
The Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin should reverse her refusal to ban "junk food" from schools, while "junk food" advertising directed at under-12s should be banned.
"The Government is running campaigns highlighting the danger of obesity in children and then failing to do the obvious to stop obesity in children," said Cllr Bronwen Maher. "Planners always react with surprise when I ask them: Would you want to bring up a child in this estate? Estates should be designed to offer childcare locally, and to be child friendly," she declared.
Mr Cuffe said schools needed to be small and local so that children do not have far to travel each day. "There has to be a carrot and stick approach: more pedestrian crossings, sheltered bicycle stands to stop the SUVs from practically parking in the classroom," he told the policy launch in the Cultivate Centre in Dublin's Temple Bar.
Welcoming the document, Jean McCarthy of Educate Together said rapidly growing suburbs are being given "large schools on small plots, so that everybody has to travel considerable distances to get to it".
Moreover, the early childcare supplement should be turned into a refundable tax credit so that it could be paid as a cash payment to parents working at home, the Greens believe.
Maternity benefit should be increased from 22 to 26 weeks, while either parent should be able to take up to six months statutory leave during the child's first year. Paid paternity benefit should be given for the first two weeks, while child benefit should rise to €155.92 for the first two children and to €192.85 for the third, and subsequent children.
Also, medical cards should be made available to all under-18s, starting with under-sixes, while each child should be entitled to 3½ hours of pre-school education each week in the year before formal schooling begins.
The lengthy policy document was drafted after the party held a Children's Consultation Day last July when it invited more than 20 children of all ages to offer their opinions.
Besides other preferences, the children said they wanted "parents to get eight hours sleep, and have longer holidays so that they could spend more time with them", while teachers should not be able to "take away sports/ playtime as punishment in schools".
