Professor Cillian Twomey:

Can we call this something other than "fair deal"? If we say "fair deal" often enough there will be a presumption that something fair is going on but there can be absolutely nothing fair about fair deal until we apply it across the board. There is no will to do that and I am not advocating it but there would at least be consistency about it. I agree with Mr. Dunne that there are differences between supporting somebody at home and putting a person in residential care. Mervyn Taylor is fed up of me saying that the nursing home support scheme, NHSS, is a clever, disingenuous label which I call the "unfair deal". It has established itself in people's minds as something fantastic for the senior citizens of this country but it is, in my view, a disgrace.