Almost four out of every five deaths in Ireland are caused by diseases of the circulatory system - including heart disease, cancer or respiratory disease - according to figures published today.
Vital statistics for 2004, published by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), reveal some 37 per cent of people died from illnesses such as heart disease and stroke.
A further 28 per cent of those who died in 2004 suffered from cancer, while 14 per cent of deaths were caused by respiratory diseases.
More than one in 20, or 1,594 , of all deaths were due to injury and poisoning. Over 70 per cent of people who died in such circumstances were male. According to the CSO, these deaths were largely due to suicide, self-inflicted injury and road deaths.
Some 310 deaths in 2004 were caused by accidents in the home, of which 149 were accidental falls. Half of those involved people over the age of 75. There were also 75 deaths from accidental poisoning, while fires caused the deaths of 41 people, including two under the age of 15.
The death rate fell in 2004 to 7.1 per 1,000 population, compared with 7.3 per 1,000 in 2003.
The report says there have been "substantial improvements" in death rates among older people in the last decade.
"For example, the death rate for people aged between 65 and 74 has reduced from 31 deaths per 1,000 people in 1994, to 21 deaths per 1,000 people in 2004," it states.
The vital statistics also confirm that Irish women were slightly less fertile in 2004 than in the previous year, producing on average 1.95 children in a lifetime, down slightly on 1.98 in 2003.
Teenagers and women in their 20s and early 30s had fewer children on average in 2004 than in the previous year. In 2004, the average age of mothers was 30.8, some 0.2 years older than in 2003.
The total fertility rate has risen from a low of 1.85 children in 1995. However, the CSO points out that during the 1960s and 1970s, the average number of children was always above three, and was always above two in the 1980s.
There were 61,972 births in 2004, an increase of 443 on the previous year. Almost 32 per cent of all births in 2004 (19,798) were outside marriage, but for women having their first child, some 43 per cent of births were outside marriage.
The full 182-page Vital Statisticsreport is available from the CSO and online at www.cso.ie.