Labour has pledged to establish more community-based sports and recreation programmes for children and young people if elected.
Dublin West TD, Joan Burton said: "More than one in three people in Ireland are aged under 25, making ours one of the youngest in populations in Europe. Yet, when it comes to local youth facilities, many communities are left with a green space and not much else."
Publishing the party's plan for youth activites in Dublin today, Ms Burton said: "Our kids' free time is increasingly becoming colonised by private leisure, from private gyms to computer games to expensive summer camps.
She said: "The result is that more children and young people are increasingly excluded from sport and other recreational activities simply because their parents cannot afford them."
The Labour Party, she said, would establish more after-school and summer holiday youth schemes which would overseen by local authorities, and co-ordinated by a full-time youth recreation co-ordinator.
The schemes will be staffed in part by third-level students in a system similar to the Student Summer Job Scheme that ran successfully from 1993 to 2002, she said.
Dun Laoghaire candidate Oisin Quinn said the failure to encourage children to exercise regularly and to educate them about the importance of sport and general fitness simply stores-up major problems for the future for overall health and well-being.
Mr Quinn said the Government was guilty of "shocking neglect" in allowing the famous Dun Laoghaire baths remain derelict.
"30 years ago, at a time of fewer resources, the baths provided a fantastic, safe sea-water swimming facility for thousands of children in the area," Mr Quinn said.
Providing structured leisure and sporting time for children and young people was central to Labour's youth policy, he said.
"Offering adolescents structured leisure activities along the lines outlined in our document is also a means of combating anti-social behaviour," he added
Mr Quinn said Labour wanted to ensure that PE is given the status it deserves in all schools.
"But this must be backed-up with properly-resourced community based extra-curricular programmes for young people so they can develop their skills and their interest in sports and leisure," he said.