The Dealer guffawed at a story told by Galway IFA’s Anne Mitchell at a Fair Deal meeting last week which provided a light moment during a discussion on what is a very serious topic.

She described how she met a woman in Leinster last year who had no one left to mind her and how instead of carting herself off to a nursing home she checked into a hotel.

“Her husband died, she had no family, she said nobody loved her enough to mind her. She went into a hotel. It was €600 a week. She got up when she liked, she went to bed when she liked. She had a menu for her meals and a glass of wine when she felt like it.

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“If she went to the nursing home, she’d give €1,000 a week, be pulled out of the bed at 6am, she’d be fed slop and she’d go to bed at eight in the evening.”

The Dealer doubts he would be able to live out his days in the Shelbourne, but there’s a good few other spots he wouldn’t mind seeing around the country. That or I could take off on a cruise.