Brian Stanley (Laois, Independent)

One proper meal per day can make a major difference.

There should be more home help staff and more flexibility in what they can do. There should be more public health nurses, who are fundamental in keeping people in their homes.

Deputy O'Donnell, as Minister of State, will agree that loneliness is killing people. This is not something the Government can sort on its own. Whatever we can do through voluntary organisations and society as a whole, we should do it. We should send out the message that we need people to visit their elderly neighbours. I used to do it as a young person going to school. My mother used to send me to visit old people on my way home from school. If they needed kindling brought in for the fire, for example, I brought it in. It was just a matter of chatting to them for a few minutes.

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