Renewed calls have been made for the State to appoint a Minister with specific responsibility to combat loneliness as it emerged that “Ireland is actually the loneliest place in Europe”.
Green Party Senator Pauline O’Reilly said official figures show that 20 per cent of Irish people have reported feeling lonely most or all of the time, the highest level in the EU, where the average is just 13 per cent.
“Even the figure of 13 per cent is fairly shocking,” she said, adding that the World Health Organisation (WHO) has a commission on social connection to address loneliness which it has described as a “pressing health threat”.
In November 2023, WHO launched a new commission to foster social connections as it declared loneliness a “pressing health threat”. In its Seanad motion the Green Party highlighted the WHO report, and also noted the Canadian Citizens Connections report last year, which stated that 45,000 deaths a year in that country are attributed to loneliness.
Ms O’Reilly called for the appointment of a Minister specifically to deal with loneliness. The Greens want every local authority to “prepare a local strategy to combat loneliness through the use of libraries, public buildings, sports partnerships and public participation networks”.
And she said loneliness should be measured annually. “We do not want to wait five to six years when this is such a threat to public health.”
Her party colleague, Róisín Garvey, called for a commission on loneliness, and said “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.”
She noted that the rural organisation Muintir na Tíre does a senior alert scheme to provide monitored panic alarms for over-65s. The organisation noticed a 46 per cent increase in calls since the pandemic from people merely to seek assurance “and for somebody to tell them they are okay”.
Green Party Northern Ireland Senator Malachai O’Hara said the Northern Ireland Assembly had a similar debate on Monday, where they “specifically talked about a cross-departmental strategy”. Statistics in the North showed that one in three disabled people talk about experiencing loneliness and “that is a real challenge”.
Independent Senator Victor Boyhan called on Minister of State for Public Health Colm Burke to “dust off” a report produced on loneliness by former senator Dr Keith Swanick called A Connected Island – an Ireland free from Loneliness. Mr Boyhan said the report had a number of “important asks and tasks. Needless to say many have not been done”.
The Minister acknowledged that loneliness is increasing and said the pandemic was a major contributory factor to social isolation. He added that several studies have linked loneliness to multiple chronic health conditions.
But he said the Government had actually introduced many policies and initiatives to promote social including and combat loneliness, including the community mental health fund and the national positive ageing strategy which provides “a blueprint for promoting older people’s engagement in economic, social, cultural and community life”.
He added that “we have taken great strides in making Ireland a great place to grow old”, adding that in 2019 the WHO formally designated Ireland the first age-friendly country in the world.
Fine Gael Senator Martin Conway expressed concern that people had contact during the pandemic because there was a structure in place but “because we are back to normal these Covid response teams have been stood down”.
Independent Senator Eileen Flynn said “we have many action plans to tackle loneliness in this country but we haven’t had any action around these plans”. She said there should be a focus on the “do-able win, the small win in the short-term”.
Ms Flynn, who represents the Traveller community, added that “being poor is lonely. Living on a halting site, pushed away from society, that’s lonely.”
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