More than 40 per cent of parents of pre-school children regularly use childcare, according to the first childcare survey released by the Central Statistics Office yesterday.
It found that pre-school children in more than 73,000 families were regularly cared for by somebody other than their parents. Almost 23,000 families regularly relied on unpaid relatives to mind pre-school children. Lone parents were more reliant on this form of childcare.
The CSO survey, conducted late last year, showed an increased demand towards work-based creches. About one fifth of families with young children said they would welcome alternative childcare arrangements. Nearly half of those said financial reasons were preventing them from availing of their desired alternative.
Almost half of those seeking alternatives said they would like a workplace creche or Montessori school. Ms Joan Carmichael, ICTU assistant general secretary, said this was significant as there had been a move away from work-based creches in recent years.
Longer working hours and more commuting could explain why people wanted to have their young children near their workplace, she said. The desire for workplace creches highlighted the need for extended parental leave and more flexible family arrangements, according to Ms Kathleen O'Meara, Labour spokeswoman on children.
According to the CSO figures, parents spent between euro79.42 to ?118.96 per week on childcare arrangements. However, this figure is not a true reflection of the typical childcare bill being paid by a parent working full time outside the home, as it includes part-time workers, some working as little as one to 10 hours a week.
The ICTU has asked the CSO to expand on this information to show how many parents are working part-time or flexible hours. The average cost per hour is a more accurate figure - parents of pre-school children paid an average of euro3.25 per hour, while parents of school-going children paid euro4.70 per hour last year. Parents in Dublin paid euro6.61 per hour for school-going children in creches and Montessori schools, while childminders charged euro4.53 per hour for younger children.
These charges appear to be lower than in Britain where a Daycare Trust survey in January found that the typical cost of a nursery place for a baby was £128, or euro184.32 per week. The average cost for a toddler's care in this State was about ?130 per week last year, while a creche place in Dublin was euro181.20 per week.
