Debate contribution: Loneliness Strategy

Debate contribution by Miss Órlaithí Flynn on 29 April 2024.

MLA

Miss Órlaithí Flynn

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

29 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Loneliness Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4486497

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I say a big "Thank you" to Robbie and Claire for today's motion. It is another really important motion that we are debating in the Assembly. Hopefully, there will be cross-party support for a cross-departmental approach to a loneliness strategy that, importantly, is fully funded. It is not the fault of any individual Minister in the Executive, because we know how the budgets are, but there are problems with the 10-year strategy, the Protect Life 2 strategy and the substance use strategy. Those are all really important pieces of work, but they are in competition with one another for funding, and they would be in competition for funding with a loneliness strategy. However, we still need to pull this piece of work together and then try to prioritise the funding for it. We need to get the strategy pulled together first to see the detail of what it will look like. Robbie said that we are lagging behind other countries and parts of Britain that have already done this work and have a strategy up and running. We know that the rates of people who are battling loneliness are rising. Members have mentioned that there are people who feel lonely, and then there is chronic loneliness. Some of that can be really hard to live with for people. Colin talked about how social isolation can build up through people feeling anxious, and he said that one third of people feel shame around admitting that they feel lonely. It is so sad that so many people feel embarrassed and ashamed about speaking out to say that they are lonely and do not have people to speak to. Members have already mentioned mental health, but there are lots of linkages between loneliness and mental health problems and mental ill health, proper diagnosable mental illness. Sadly, we know that that all has a longer-term effect on the overall health system, health services and waiting lists. It is not about trying to dismiss someone who, as a result of loneliness, ends up with a mental illness or a physical illness, but the point is that that all has a knock-on impact on the Department of Health, our A&Es and our waiting lists for different physical health problems. Today's motion should be about preventing some of that, which would prevent a cost to the health service and all the Departments. The motion is linked to all the Departments, so they will have to get on board. Harry mentioned some brilliant groups in his constituency. Colin mentioned Men's Sheds. I am sure that all of us can think of really good community groups that already do good preventative work with people on loneliness, but I will reference a group that briefed the Health Committee. It was our planning day last week, and one of the groups that came in to give us a briefing was the Safe Families project. That charity is currently working out of the Belfast Trust and the Northern Trust. It offers hope, belonging, support, comfort and friendship to some really vulnerable families and some families who are possibly on the verge of breaking up, where social services have to get involved. In a lot of cases, it is down to isolation and loneliness. It is just down to people struggling a wee bit and not having a bit of support, such as a listening ear, a person to take their kids to the park for 10 minutes or a person to let them get the house cleaned up. It is about having company and friendship.

Some members of Safe Families might be in the Public Gallery today. Their presentation to the Health Committee the other week was brilliant. The work that they do —.

Yes, of course.

It does, absolutely, Harry. That is the intention of the great work that Safe Families carries out. Through that work, it has been able to connect 200 families back into their community. That is massive. Over 500 children now have a trusted adult in their life. It even helps the family unit. It helps wee kids before they maybe have to go to social services to get high-level interventions. That group prevents some of that by caring about people and helping them with their isolation and loneliness. At last week's briefing, they said that the volunteers do ordinary things that have extraordinary effects on families and outcomes. It can be something as simple as taking a mum for a coffee, helping her around the home or taking the kids to the park. One volunteer summed it up well:

"What I am doing is not earth-shattering, but it would be if everyone did it."

That is at the heart of the debate. Yes, we need the strategy, we need to prepare and we need all Departments to be involved, but, as Colin said, we need to treat each other like humans and look out for and support one another. If you see someone who is lonely or isolated, try to intervene early so that they do not end up with chronic loneliness.

846 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:20 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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