Two-thirds of accidental drownings are due to land-based activities, while just 22 per cent are due to swimming, according to data from Water Safety Ireland (WSI).
Joanne Walsh, chief executive of the statutory body, described the statistic as “startling”.
“These (67 per cent) are people who had no intention of going into water,” she said, saying some might fall into water while walking.
Provisional statistics from WSI show 19 people have died so far this year by drowning. Last year, 78 people drowned across the State, according to the data.
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The number has been decreasing since 2018, when 145 people drowned, Ms Walsh said. However, she said, “behind every number is a person, a life, a tragedy”, while families, friends and communities are “devastated by every figure”, she said.
Ms Walsh said she was “deeply saddened” to hear about the deaths of teenagers Emmanuel Familola (16) and Matt Sibanda (18). They died after getting into difficulty off the coast of Buncrana, Co Donegal, on Saturday afternoon.
A third young man managed to swim to the shore and was recovering at Letterkenny University Hospital on Sunday.
The teenagers are understood to have been trying to retrieve a football from the sea when they got into difficulty.
Noting a spell of warm weather in recent weeks, Ms Walsh said “tragic events” such as the deaths of Mr Familola and Mr Sibanda “remind us how unpredictable the water can be”.
“Everyone is heading to the rivers, lakes and the ocean to enjoy, which is natural,” she said, but risks are not always “immediately apparent”.
Ms Walsh said people aged in their 40s to 60s accounted for 61 per cent of drownings from 2018 to 2022. She warned there should be “constant, uninterrupted” supervision of children while swimming.
She advised people planning to swim in the coming months to use areas known to be safe, to swim in pairs and not to overestimate their ability.
She said there is “always a risk with water”, regardless of its depth, particularly where strong currents or cold-water shock might be at play.
