Nearly 40 per cent of people who died in fires in homes across the State in the past decade lived in properties that did not have smoke alarms, an Irish Times data analysis has found.
However, the true figure could be even higher as some properties were so badly damaged during the blaze that the fire brigade could not tell if the home had a fire alarm or not.
In all, 277 people died in 249 residential fires in houses, apartments, mobile homes/caravans, bedsits and hostels, with the majority dying alone, though there were some incidents which involved multiple fatalities.
A smoke alarm was present in the case of 88 residential fires in which a total of 99 people died, according to data from 2010-19 collected from fire brigades by the Department of the Environment, Housing and Local Government. However, 21 of the 99 died when a smoke alarm, although present, was not working.
In a further 21 of these cases, it is unknown whether the alarm present was working, as the damage was too severe to ascertain.
In 59 house fires, in which 72 people died, the damage was too extensive for the fire brigade to determine whether there was a smoke alarm present or not.