IF you want to get into Mary Ann McCormack’s bad books, then just call her Giraffe Childcare facilities “crèches”.

Puh-leese. I mean do crèches serve their infant inmates alabaster bowls of organic creamed fowl? Do crèches provide t’ai chi for toddlers? Do crèches teach their charges how to write a spreadsheet in Cobal? Well, Giraffe Childcare doesn’t either, but what we are dealing with here, says McCormack, is something called the “custom-designed childcare facility”.

When McCormack, the company’s joint managing director, mentions that the firm’s curriculum could include some type of infant yoga, some of us might yearn for the days when Santa left a sixpence in a child’s slipper and tucked an orange into the stocking.

But time moves on and Giraffe, which has about 70,000sq ft of posh childcare facilities at six Dublin locations, is a business fully in tune with the changing culture, demographics, and transport habits of modern urban Ireland.

“Before the last few years the notion that there was a business to be built in childcare — a branded chain of childcare facilities with a specific identity — was something that people in Ireland would have struggled to accept. We were very mindful of that,” says McCormack, as she welcomes me into the lobby of the company’s Cherrywood facility.

By holding open the door for a harassed-looking mother making her exit, I was presented with an opportunity to breach security.

I should have been buzzed in, apparently, and McCormack seems a bit miffed by the fact that I have achieved entry so effortlessly.

However, I’m inside now, so we begin a tour of the premises.

“All of our outlets are more or less laid out the same way. If you see one you’ll get an idea of them all,” says McCormack.

The facilities are indeed impressive. Spotlessly clean, bright and abundantly staffed, the young denizens of Giraffe Childcare seem to benefit from all the normal appurtenances of a well-appointed crèche, with plenty of bells and whistles thrown in.

There is, for instance, a number of snooze rooms where the little darlings can take their siestas free from interruption by their peers.

There is an outdoor play area with funkily-painted swings and slides. The ground is made out of a spongey material that cushions children against the inevitable playground falls.

Giraffe Childcare is itself a child of the M50 era. Its locations — the IFSC, Blanchardstown, Park West, Central Park, Cherrywood, Harcourt Road, Liffey Valley and the National College of Ireland — provide the right geographical co-ordinates for young professionals whose lives are robbed of time by traffic and competitive career pressures.