Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. He has an interesting brief – public health, well-being and the drugs task force. If you look at the Irish word for well-being, folláin, it is about being whole. As a nation I wonder how many people are getting that wholesomeness in their daily lives. Therefore, today we call for a commission on loneliness. As the Minister of State with the responsibility for well-being, I think the Minister of State might be able to do the interdepartmental thing. Nobody else has the word “well-being” in their title and it is the antithesis of loneliness.

I urge the Minister of State to take this motion seriously as we prepare for an aging population. A quarter of us will be over the age of 65 by 2050. We have smaller families and less reliance on family members. Therefore, loneliness will become much more of an issue. Already more than 5,300 older people reported feeling lonely in 2023. I was on to ALONE about it and they were very happy about this commission. Actually, many NGOs got on to us, thanking us for bringing this request for a commission forward and asking us to support the motion – some of them did not know we were the ones tabling the motion. It is amazing to get positive emails. We got many positive emails about this request to ask for a commission, so I think we need to take it seriously as a Government.

I do not know if the Minister of State knows of Muintir na Tíre. It is another organisation that has been around for years. It does the senior alert scheme, which provides monitored panic alarms for over-65s. The scheme was originally intended to deal with health and crime emergencies but Muintir na Tíre noticed a major increase in reassurance calls, where the person feels vulnerable or lonely but there is no actual incident and calls the monitoring centre just for reassurance. Nothing is happening; they just want to ring somebody and for somebody to tell them they are okay. We obtained figures from the monitoring centres which show the volume of these reassurance calls has increased by 46% since Covid. Everything has changed since Covid and that is why are calling for this commission.

I meet with Macra na Feirme regularly. Figures from its survey show that 27% of people nationwide put down loneliness as their biggest fear about growing old in their community. That is one quarter of the young farmers of Ireland. When asked what their concerns were, their biggest fear was being lonely in old age – and we are trying to keep people on the land. Some 98% of participants are dealing with mental health issues daily or weekly, followed by career decision-making. School refusals, which is a newly-included category, is encountered by 62% of guidance counsellors daily or weekly. The order of top issue has shifted in the survey, with mental health now surpassing career-related concerns.

I had representatives from the Institute of Irish Guidance Counsellors in here recently to do some work with them and the Minister for Education. They have vast knowledge and experience. They are the front line of youth mental health, and loneliness is a big part of that too. Even though young people are spending all their time on their phones interacting with people, humans need humans. No amount of social media interaction, likes or shares - or TikTok - gives people company. We have a huge issue with our young people as well.

I am worried about our farming community, our ageing population and our young people. We have funded community halls all over Ireland. A very simple thing that should come out of this commission is the need for an older people’s group in every single village and parish. What are those community halls for if they are not for older people? In our parish hall at home the hall will let me hire the building for a tenner. We have a group called Young at Heart that I started three years ago and it is the best. Between 20 and 30 older people - they are young - from my parish meet, and they came up with the name Young at Heart. We meet on the first Friday of every month. Let us have a first Friday for older people all over Ireland. Just open the door of the community hall and put on the kettle - they will do the rest themselves. We have to get them out and get them together. Now new friendships have been formed among this older active group.I am bringing them all up to Leinster House tomorrow, if Members would like to meet them.

I smile because I get so much joy out of meeting older people. They are our mentors; they have seen it all before. They are much more relaxed and calm than I am so they are good for me to hang out with. If we value our older people, we will bring this commission forward and do the work needed to prevent loneliness. We have many new Local Link services, which are brilliant. They call to your door, which is amazing, but many old people still do not know about them.

We have a huge new concern around loneliness among younger people as well. If Macra na Feirme is saying that more than 25% of its members say loneliness is a fear they have about growing old on the farm, we have a serious problem because we need our farmers and we need them to grow our food. The days of importing everything from all over the world are dwindling, with the way the climate is going and the cost of oil and petrol. I will stop talking because I want to share my time with our lovely new Senator Malachai O'Hara, who will speak from a different perspective. Guidance counsellors, Alone, Muintir na Tíre, Macra na Feirme and the Green Party Senators are all saying we need a commission. We have support for that from all parties and none. I implore the Minister of State, who has responsibility for well-being, to take this seriously and let us look at what we can do. It will save us money in the long run because prevention is better than cure. Old people ring me all the time just looking for a chat. Let us take this seriously and commit to a commission for loneliness for this country.