Public parks in Dublin have never been as busy as they are now.
That is according to the Office of Public Works (OPW), who are encouraging people to use all public parks and not just the most well-known.
St Stephen's Green has seen visitor numbers drop slightly due to fewer office workers in the city.
Margaret Gormley is chief park superintendent with the OPW.
She told Barry Whyte for Newstalk Breakfast that local parks have seen a large increase in visitors.
"The parks in Dublin, and throughout the country, have never been as busy as they have been in the last number of months.
"The user numbers in a number of the parks has definitely increased.
"For example, the numbers in St Stephen's Green went down slightly - obviously there's very few office workers in the city.
"But some of the more neighbourhood parks have seen a huge increase in numbers.
People sitting on park benches in front of social distancing signs at St Stephen's Green in Dublin. Picture by: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie"For example the Irish National War Memorial Gardens at Islandbridge: visitor numbers went up 65% in the last year alone.
"That's a great, beautiful little park for the public to enjoy - and we do encourage people to avail of the parks, and to plan their visit.
"Maybe not to go when the parks are at their busiest in the afternoon or on a very sunny day.
"Just to try and plan a time that is suitable for them".
The OPW operates a 'Leave No Trace' policy, encouraging the public to take any litter home with them.
Green Party councillor for Dublin's south west inner-city, Michael Pidgeon, said authorities need to ensure that parks are for people.
"The Phoenix Park sometimes suffers from having being for through traffic, being for parking for people commuting into town.
"I guess it's just about focusing in on 'what is this park for, what do we want it to be for?'
"And in a lot of cases, that's fairly simple: it's a playground, it's a bit of nature, maybe it's for sports.
"But what it shouldn't be for is the kind of thing we need to make sure we're on the ball... we can't be paving over parts of parks just to add on a car park or something like that".
Asked if he wants to see less cars in the Phoenix Park, he said: "There's some things we've seen in the pandemic that would be good to keep: people going for walks, enjoying the outdoors, enjoying parks is something we'd want to hold on to.
"In parks like the Phoenix Park you do want to see far fewer cars, far less traffic - still be able to drive there if you need to, but making sure that the parks are there to serve the function that they're intended to".
