A HSE audit has revealed that nearly half of ambulances observed at Sligo, Letterkenny and Mercy University Hospitals failed to meet turnaround targets.
Ambulances must aim to transfer a patient to the emergency department and be freed up again in 20 minutes.
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The audit, which included a four hour observation of ambulance handover times at Sligo, found that this wasn't achieved in nearly half of the cases.
The reasons for the delays all related to emergency department demand and capacity issues.
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Fianna Fail Cllr Edel McSharry believes that the epicentre is the recruitment embargo and that ambulance crews sitting outside are effectively frozen in time:
