John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I would have known professionally how, as a society, we generally still associate loss with the loss of a loved one. While not as acute, loss of status, health or a pet, some materially cherished thing or a home can have a significant impact on people.

Depression used to be the concept that dared not speak its name. Loneliness is a much more difficult thing for people to speak about. I would be grateful if the witnesses could attempt to provide a definition of it that might be helpful for the record, never mind for people who are listening.

I have a couple of questions. I found the concept of hoarding very interesting. I ask the witnesses to say a little bit more about that. ALONE seems to be the only agency that offers assistance to people dealing with this. Where might hoarding emanate from? I refer to the challenges people face in terms of decluttering their lives.

I never liked the term "cocooning". It is easy to forget that the term emerged from the images from Italy at the time of the outbreak of Covid in Ireland. That generated a fear and meant we were not able to give sufficient time and did not have sufficient research available to us to consider things such as the fact Irish people, in particular older people, did not live in the same kind of communal settings as their Italian counterparts. That had a profound impact. The notion of cocooning made a lot of sense at the start, and I do not think anybody rebelled against that. As I said, it shows how deeply and quickly behaviour becomes embedded psychologically,. I am aware of a lot of examples of this.

What and how do the witnesses think we can go about encouraging people and providing messaging? There was brief messaging on this a month or two ago when the new chief medical officer, CMO, addressed the issue. It stands in stark contrast to the very rich lives the majority of older people live on a daily basis and how engaged many older people are in everyday activities. It stands in stark contrast to the number of older people who spend as much time out of their homes on a daily basis as they do in them, doing things and being active, engaged and involved in their communities. Many play a vital role in their communities, rather than just turning up things that are laid on for them. They provide and lay on things for other people in their communities.