Ireland needs a Minister for Loneliness as well as local authorities tackling the issue "from the ground up", a Senator has said.
It comes after a caller suggested that people's lives seem to be taken up with "everything other than just time for each other"
John said he feels like he 'gets left behind' especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senator Pauline O'Reilly told The Hard Shoulder the issue needs to be dealt with.
"As a politician you come across people in all walks of life and it did kind of jump out to me the levels of loneliness - and it's not just about being alone," she said.
"You could be surrounded by people but actually feel very lonely.
"Only this week I met a woman in Galway and she has several children but she feels a sense of loneliness.
"She'd love to be able to have a coffee morning with her neighbours and there isn't one.
"The kids are bringing their kids to 'this, that and the other' and people just don't have enough time to give each other."
'Prioritising spaces'
Senator O'Reilly said Ireland doesn't have communal spaces that communities need.
"It is about prioritising spaces - like municipal spaces that you'd have in other countries - we don't have that to the same extent here," she said.
"Locally somewhere to sit on the bench while other people are running around a track or playing tennis for free or bring their dog where everybody's congregating.
"Yes we have some parks but it's just not enough, you don't you don't see that as much here.
"There's no reason why we shouldn't invest in it and I think that's the right thing to do".
'Anxious about loneliness'
Senator O'Reilly said she thinks the pandemic exacerbated the problem.
"I think we noticed during COVID and coming out of COVID, things like Men's Sheds fell away a lot," she said.
"So there was a huge big drive to get all of these things up and running and actually older people, in particular, were running a lot of these organisations and then just didn't come back out after COVID.
"In fact, the research shows that this was around well before COVID.
"Macra na Feirme, for instance, they did some research that showed that 27% of people that they surveyed were anxious about loneliness and loss of community getting older.
"I wonder in Ireland is it partly that we relied so heavily on the family in the past and it didn't really push the State to do that investment?"
Local authority planning
Senator O'Reilly said local authorities should also play a role.
"I also think local authorities [can be key] as well, if every local authority had to produce a plan for tackling loneliness," she said.
"They do make decisions around planning where parks go. So it has to be from the ground up as well.
"We've relied on family in Ireland for a really long time but we have a lot of people who are not living close to family - families are busy.
"People are living longer so the organisations that have been supporting people like Alone, for instance, they need more support to do that and that needs investment."
A recent European Union survey found that 20% of Irish people report feeling lonely most or all of the time - compared to an EU average of 13%.
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