Ambulances took over an hour to respond to 6,200 urgent cases

The HSE aims to respond to life-threatening heart and respiratory calls within 18 minutes and 59 seconds in 80% of cases. Picture: Denis Minihane.

It took over four hours for an ambulance to arrive to 94 life-threatening emergency calls last year.

According to Freedom of Information figures, on 21 occasions the wait time was over five hours.