Ireland is now the most expensive country in which to get child-care, according to a new study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

According to the survey, which looked at 32 industrialised countries, a double income couple with two children can pay up to 45 per cent of their net income on childcare.

However, Government figures published last year suggest that fewer parents than previously thought use fulltime, paid childcare.

Only four per cent of children of primary school age are put in child-care centres, the figures, contained in a Central Statistics Office Quarterly National Household Survey report, revealed.

The report showed that only 11 per cent of children of primary school age are in child care. Most of these are looked after either in their home by an au pair or nanny, or by a paid relative and not in an outside location, the report showed.

The vast majority of primary school children are looked after either by a parent (81 per cent), or by an unpaid relative (nine per cent), during day-time hours.

The Government recently changed the format by which it subsidises childcare, removing a €1,000-per-year childcare payment to parents with children under the age of five. Instead half of the money saved by the Government through abolishing the payment is given directly to childcare providers.

The Government gives these providers a capitation payment based on the number of children in their care.

The move penalised stay at home mothers, since they no longer have access to the money. Stay at home mothers are also penalised by the Government’s tax indivualisation policy, which penalises families where only one spouse is in paid employment to the tune of up to €6,240 per year.

The OECD report suggested that the average Irish bill for childcare is €7,500 p.a, where children are full-time in child-care, and up to €10,000 for couples living in Dublin. However, the study showed that the bill was smaller for single income families.

Other CSO figures also show that married women with children are much less likely to work full-time than men. For example, a third of married women in their 40s don’t work at all. Most of these will have children under 12. Another 127,000 women work fewer than 20 hours per week compared with only 32,000 men.

Meanwhile, a report last year raised serious questions about the standards of childcare in Irish creches and Montessori schools.

The story, reported in the Irish Independent, revealed that parental complaints led to over 100 inquiries by the Health Service Executive (HSE) last year. The HSE, however, refused to reveal the full findings of its inquiries or what actions it ordered creches to take to rectify the problems.

Among the cases investigated were several instances of children being able to wander out of creches unsupervised, staff shouting at and threatening children and failures by childcare providers to inform parents after their youngster suffered injuries.