Mr. Mervyn Taylor:

In regard to the nursing homes support scheme, which some people call the “fair deal scheme” and others call the “unfair deal scheme”, while still others say it is just a "deal", there are different views on it. It is certainly fairer than what was there previously.

I said the architecture of the scheme is dangerous. The nursing homes support scheme starts with one building block, namely, the National Treatment Purchase Fund. People who buy hip replacements and all sorts of other clinical medicine procedures negotiate individually with nursing homes - I use the term "negotiate" in inverted commas - and the nursing homes decide what rate they will pay. The HSE has no say. Approximately 80% of nursing home provision is now in private hands, with only 20% in public hands, although that is a simplistic statement that might be off by one or two percentage points. The HSE administers the scheme but does not have any other control of it. HIQA, which inspects rather than regulates, does not set the terms of the contract or the way in which people are admitted to nursing homes. ComReg, for example, might have a role in deciding the price of the band within which a mobile phone operates. I am getting out of my depth because I am not an expert in communications regulation but the Senator will understand the point I am making.