The Health Minister has warned against a focus on ambulance response times in the wake of a damning report into the service.

The health watchdog - HIQA - produced the review, highlighting how ambulances are being held up outside hospitals for long periods due to overcrowding in A&E.

Health Minister Leo Varadkar has today told the Dáil he is committed to improvements, but not necessarily in getting ambulances to people in eight minutes:

“An overemphasis on crude response times is actually not a good idea,” Mr Varadakr said. “What’s happened in other parts of the world ... is an overemphasis on response times has caused ambulance services to pull out of rural, remote areas because they weren’t achievable times, and they’ve effectively handed over services to helicopters, which is not actually the best or right thing to do, so I think we need to be careful.”

The report also highlighted an ageing fleet and, in some cases, unsafe staffing levels. It highlighted three areas – Tuam in Co Galway, Mulranny in Co Mayo and Loughlynn in Co Roscommon – as ambulance black spots in urgent need of improvement of resources.