The life expectancy of men and women in Ireland continues to rise, new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) have shown.

According to the figures, during the period 2010 to 2012, life expectancy for men was 78.3 years, and for women was 82.7 years.

In the five years between 2006 and 2011, life expectancy increased by 1.5 years for men and by 1.1 years for women.

In 1926, a man born in Ireland could only expect to live until the age of 57.4 years, while a woman was expected to live until she was just 57.9 years.

A gender gap then began to grow and this continued until 1986, when women were expected to live an extra 5.7 years than men. This gender gap has been decreasing since then, however women are now still expected to live 4.4 years more than men.

The CSO pointed out that females have a longer life expectancy than men in all EU member states. The biggest difference is in Lithuania, where women live an average of 11.2 years longer than men.