The Stay At Home Parents Association have rejected the conclusions of an ESRI report that claimed women’s employment is being scuppered by high child-care costs and therefore the Government needs to plough more money into creches to remedy the situation.

“The body of this research and CSO figures, rather than the press release, continues to show that more parents want to stay at home for part of their children’s young lives, even if the childcare costs were lower,” said a spokesperson on behalf of the Association. “We support lower childcare costs in tandem with subsidies for all other families. That is really putting children and not employers first.”

The statement said parents are continually weighing up priorities: they want lower childcare costs, but they also want the flexibility to be able to stay home, work part time and so on. They said that lone parents in particular should not have all of their choices regarding caring for their children taken away from them.

“If the government really wants to help, they would sort out pensions, subsidise all families equally and support companies that take on employees who have been at home caring for a number of years – not subsidise one form of childcare making it impossible to stay home,” the statement concluded.