Tax relief is crucial for parents

IRELAND’S abysmal failure to provide adequate childcare facilities for working mums is graphically underlined by a new study showing that nearly one in three families have to rely on unpaid relatives to mind their young children.

Unsurprisingly, lone parents, who are in greatest need of employment to put bread on the table, are also most reliant on unpaid relatives to look after their children while they go out to work.

Nationally, 25,000 families are forced to call in their relatives, while almost 20,000 have to employ a paid carer and 15,800 rely mainly on a creche or pre-school to mind young children, according to CSO statistics.