ALONE, the charity that works to support older people in Ireland, has revealed they provided a record-breaking amount of care in 2022.
The charity released its annual report and found that after another year of growth, they interacted with the largest number of older people in their 45-year history.
There has been a continuing increased demand for the organisation’s services, with Loneliness and Social Isolation needing the highest level of support for the 22,300 older people who used ALONE’s services last year.
Housing and Financial Support was also close to being the highest area that needed the most support from older people nationwide.
25,687 unique supports were provided by the charity, with 87% of these supports being successfully completed on time.
Some of these supports included Support and Befriending Service, Support Coordination, Housing, Housing with Supports, Assistive Technology, Social Prescribing and advocacy.
Operating 365 days out of the year, there were 18,456 calls made to ALONE’s National Support and Referral line.
169,351 Support and Befriending calls were made to older people by ALONE, and 71,332 visits were made by volunteers to the elderly they support.
4,956 volunteers worked to support ALONE and they gave 224,656 hours of valued support to the older people that needed it.
The charity hopes that by 2025, this number of volunteers increases to 9,000 with 856,000 hours of support given.
After the annual report was released, ALONE CEO Seán Moynihan explained, “The report shows us that we are on course to meet our challenging targets set out in our Strategic Plan. The way we have done and will do that is by continuing to grow as a national organisation and integrate our services together as demand grows for our work across Ireland”.
“This is made possible by the selfless work of so many volunteers, staff, partner organisations and supporters of which I am very grateful and proud. NGO’s such as ALONE and its partners are best positioned to identify the gaps in policy, services and resources, and are best positioned to demonstrate the solution”.
He added, “Although it is important for Government policy to keep up with an ageing demographic, it is ever-so crucial that a vibrant and enterprising NGO sector and civil society are at the forefront of changing the way that we age".
