Fianna Fáil local election candidate, Elaine Willis has welcomed the allocation of a €3 million mental health fund to be launched next month to grant aid community organisations to help
combat loneliness.
There are many elderly citizens living alone in Wicklow.
The first fund of its kind, it would go a long way through proactive local groups, who are working for mental wellbeing including alleviating loneliness. Groups will be able to submit
applications for funding of between €5,000 and €100,000 for their projects.
A minister for loneliness and the €3 million in funding are among the recommendations of the taskforce on loneliness, chaired by Fianna Fáil Senator and GP Keith Swanick who
established the 11-member group with Sean Moynihan of the charity Alone.
“Today is an important step to ensure all available supports are in place to tackle loneliness for older people living in Wicklow and throughout the Country, and I would urge community
groups to apply for funding. “The impact of loneliness cuts right across society, age, gender,
ethnicity and economic or social strata”. Loneliness has been described by a taskforce as the “most unrecognised health crisis in a generation”, concluded Willis.
