A staffing crisis in the Ambulance Service poses a serious risk to its ability to deliver urgent and emergency care services.
That's according to a HSE report, which states there is a critical and immediate need to increase workforce capacity.
The Irish Times reports that recruitment is being surpassed by demand for the organisation's services.
According to the Irish times, 78.6% of call outs for cardiac or respiratory arrests were responded to within 19 minutes in the first six months of 2021 but that the corresponding figure for this year is 72.6%.
More than 50% of non cardiac or respiratory arrest emergency calls were responded to within the 19 minute target time in the first six months of last year but the corresponding figure for this year is down to 42%.
Five years ago (2017/18) 13.6% of the national ambulance service workforce was made up of new recruits, last year (2021/22) the corresponding figure was 7.2%.
Eighty-seven workers left the service in 2021 compared to 68 in 2017.
Speaking on the report, Socialist Party TD Mick Barry said "The national ambulance service has been hit hard by post-pandemic burnout. Staff were forced to work very high levels of overtime and there are now increasing levels of resignation from the service.
"What we need is a major increase in recruitment to the service - this is necessary now in the immediate short term if we want to avoid an even sharper crisis in service provision in the years ahead."
