It is one of the toughest decisions any working parent faces - choosing where, and with whom, to leave your child for large parts of the working week.
When decision time comes, these parents are offered few real clues as to the day-to-day standards of the service in question, other than through word of mouth and by interviewing the service providers involved.
It is in this context that the work of trained HSE inspectors can play a crucial role.
Independent and objective, and following set regulations, they are the eyes and ears of the State when it comes to assessing childcare standards. In 2004, the HSE says, more than 2,500 such inspections of pre-school services looking after more than three children were conducted nationwide.
This is not to say the resulting inspection reports paint a complete picture. They provide, as many childcare facility operators have pointed out, only a snapshot of what is happening in a particular service on a particular day.
Many of the instances where creches, playgroups, nurseries or other pre-school facilities are found to have breached the legislation can be for relatively minor issues, such as inadequate paperwork or records. The HSE argues that the fact the issues highlighted in today's reports are emerging at all shows the effectiveness of the inspection process.
Where there are problems, these are being uncovered and operators held to account, it says.
However, the current childcare regulations are very basic in their nature. They were introduced during the 1990s to bring a previously unregulated sector up to standard.
Similarly, it would be wrong to simply say that all of the issues highlighted in the latest reports to be made public are minor in nature. Often the reports also reveal serious potential health, safety or other risks.
As matters stand, however, parents do not have an automatic entitlement to copies of these inspection reports.
On paper there is nothing to stop them asking their service provider for these. But this can be intimidating, as many parents do not want to be seen to make trouble.
Due to the sheer volume of material involved, it is also only possible here to provide a sample of the key issues arising out of HSE inspection visits.
A more detailed reading of the reports reveals far more information - some of it positive, and some less so.
How this information should be interpreted is something which many parents would doubtless wish to decide for themselves.
But in the absence of easy access to these reports, they are instead reliant on newspapers - and the goodwill of individual childcare operators - to find out how their offspring's childcare service is doing. In truth, this frequently means parents have no idea of the problems such reports may have illustrated in relation to their own childcare provider.
The Government announced in the Budget that it intends to to spend some €575 million of taxpayers' money developing new childcare places over the next five years. In this light, the HSE's plans to allow parents free and easy access to their child's pre-school's inspection reports are welcome.
Childcare inspections: sample quotes
"It was observed that Sellotape is used to hold up the wallpaper in places and so this needs addressing ... the two carpets/matted areas in this room are stained and dirty in areas and so require a thorough clean."
"The nappy changing unit located in (the) toilet area is unsatisfactory ... it is strongly recommended that this facility is relocated to a more suitable area."
- Belfield Creche Ltd, UCD, March 14th, 2005.
"It was stated that not all members of staff had attended briefing sessions/training in "Children First", the national guidelines for the protection and welfare of children."
"The Nest", Portmarnock, Co Dublin, November 3rd, 2004*
"The pre-school children were singing inappropriate nursery rhymes eg "when Barney dies or kills his mother".
"Staff were observed smoking outside the creche ... staff were overheard discussing a child in the post office and when they were told by a witness not to discuss the child in public, the witness was told to 'F*** Off'."
- Fingal ICTU, Main Street, Finglas, September 14th, 2005.
* Responding, the owner of "The Nest", Yvonne Bowers, told The Irish Times that, after the inspection, she had applied for five staff members to take part in the specified training sessions. But, she said, she had been told by her health board that there were no places available on the training course.