Mr. Se?n Moynihan:

To reiterate a point a member made, older people are net contributors in society. It is wonderful that a lot of people are living longer and healthier lives but the fact that older people now make up 20% of the population leads us to say that more resources and focus need to come into play, whether in housing, transport or mental health, because the numbers are rising.

As regards the national positive ageing strategy Deputy Lahart mentioned, last month was the tenth anniversary of the launch of the strategy. It never had an implementation plan and no money was ever provided for it. A few years ago, it was changed from a strategy to guiding principles. It has now been rolled up into the commission on care, which Mr. Taylor highlighted. We have been waiting for the commission on care to be set up for several years. Rather than using our time to respond to an ageing population in the areas of loneliness and mental health by planning, discussing and reacting, we are slightly stuck in getting things set up.

The issue with loneliness is interesting. Following Covid, many people are aware of the effect of loneliness, some of which is caused by the fractures of life, death or bereavement. The loneliness task force, on which carers, Jigsaw, the Samaritans and Trinity College are represented, highlighted the levels of loneliness in older people during Covid and the effect of that on their mental health. There is so much evidence to show that loneliness is a predicator of poor mental health outcomes, anxiety, distress and poor physical outcomes. The task force also showed that there a large number of younger people are struggling in that area. As an NGO, we formed the task force with people who have knowledge. We have made lots of submissions and extracted all the TILDA research and other research and presented it to the Departments, the Government and others. Despite this, we cannot see where the commitments in the programme for Government, and those made by Healthy Ireland and in the implementation plans, are backed up. We cannot find an individual in the Department of Health who feels it is within his or her remit to discuss loneliness. This is post-pandemic, when we have realised the effect the pandemic had on all age groups and their mental health.

We welcome that the committee is talking about mental health in older people. In the past eight to ten years, mental health has become much more visible to people. It is a topic of conversation. I love phrases such as "It is all right not to be all right." While we are across all these things, we are not targeting older people. We are leaving them out of the conversation. Everything done by the specialist organisations in this area seems to be targeted at young people. For us, it is about the Government and all of us in society living up to our commitments and the evidence we have.

On loneliness, if the commission of care is where the national positive ageing strategy has gone, and we think it has, then we need to get it established so that we have a way of driving this conversation. To repeat myself, we all know how difficult loneliness is. There is so much research to back up its impact on physical and mental health. In reality, there is a need for action across all age groups in this regard.