Debate contribution: Loneliness Strategy

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 29 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

29 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Loneliness Strategy

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4486538

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the Members who tabled this important motion. Loneliness has become a public health epidemic, and Stormont's position as the only Government in the UK without a strategy on it is no longer excusable. Poverty is pervasive, and it intensifies loneliness. Of those living in the most deprived areas, almost 30% reported feelings of loneliness, a figure that is much higher than in more affluent communities across the North. The impact that a lack of money has on ability to take part in the celebrations and get-togethers that many take for granted intensifies isolation. The inability to join in or even provide for yourself or your family can often fill people with shame. Too often, care homes and supported housing schemes are cut off from wider communities. In housing developments, a lack of safe communal areas often inhibits people from connecting with their neighbours. Accessible and affordable spaces such as community centres, youth clubs and libraries in which community groups can meet are vital, but those services are often underfunded, to the detriment of the health of those who already live in isolation. For many, being social is a privilege, even though it is in our nature and our DNA to be so. Almost everything costs money, whether it is travelling to meet someone or going for a coffee. Loneliness is exacerbated by lack of access to social amenities, and lack of access stems from lack of resources. Today, members of the parties in the Assembly speak of the detrimental impact of loneliness on the most vulnerable in our society, yet, only last month, some parties voted to hike the rates for those households, placing the burden of revenue raising on working people. The NI health survey, which has already been referred to, has shown that loneliness amongst older people can be exacerbated by factors such as geographical isolation and poor connectivity and transport links. The concessionary fares scheme that provides free travel for over-60s was established to promote accessible public transport for the members of the community who are most at risk of social exclusion, yet the Department for Infrastructure has not fully committed to maintaining that in the months and years ahead. Parties here cannot express their concern for the very people whom they want to rinse of their limited income, driving them further into poverty and thus social isolation. They cannot pretend to empathise with the people whom they continually punish and marginalise with their vote. There is a loneliness epidemic in the North that is produced by a system that drives us apart. It targets the most vulnerable in our society. We need to invest in our communities' infrastructure and transport to ensure that we do not drive them further into social isolation. We support the motion; however, we call on the Executive to properly fund those vital services, to invest in our communities and to lift people out of poverty, if we are ever to have an anti-loneliness strategy that is worth the paper that it is written on.

505 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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