The biggest concern facing Irish parents today is the state of their finances, a new survey has found.

According to the survey of 500 mothers and fathers, money is an even bigger worry than the health of their family.

Almost half of parents do not have private health insurance for their families, while many more have considered cancelling their insurance policies due to financial concerns.

The survey looked at a number of issues facing parents in Ireland today. It found that four in five mothers are concerned about the quality of care their children are receiving in crèches. This is not surprising given the media storm surrounding a number of crèches earlier this year.

Last May, a Prime Time documentary, A Breach of Trust, showed disturbing footage which had secretly been filmed in three crèches - Giraffe in Belarmine in Dublin, Links in Abington in Dublin and Little Harvard in Rathnew in Wicklow.

The footage showed children being shouted at, cursed at, threatened and inappropriately punished, for example in one instance, a young child was locked in a room by herself. Some children were also strapped into chairs for long periods - up to two hours in some cases - with no stimulation. Others were manhandled and held down at naptime.

Meanwhile, the survey also revealed that six in 10 parents do not believe the internet is a safe place for children and at least eight in 10 know their children's passwords for email and social networking accounts.

However, almost three in four parents allow their children to use their iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices unsupervised. Another four in 10 said they used such gadgets to distract their children while out and about, such as in restaurants.

Almost half of those surveyed admitted that their children spend at least three hours of screen time per day on various electronic devices.

When it came to nutrition, while most parents said they looked at food packaging to assess fat and salt content, one in five admitted to getting takeaways for their families once a week.

The survey was carried out ahead of the Maternity & Infant Awards 2013, which will take place in October.