Just 45% of patients who need admission get a hospital bed within the target time of six hours from when they attend an emergency department.
A new report for the Health Service Executive also reveals that 15% of patients who require admission wait more than 24 hours for a bed.
For patients who do not need a bed, 92% are discharged within six hours.
The report also shows that almost 1,300 hospital beds in the health system cannot be used due to delays in discharges, cost savings, refurbishment, infection control and other reasons.
The hospitals where patients wait the longest for admission after attending the emergency department are Dublin’s Beaumont (average 27.9-hour wait) and Connolly (average 27-hour wait) hospitals, along with at Naas General (average 24.1-hour wait) and Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda (23.1-hour wait).
While the number of people attending emergency departments fell by 4%, compared to the same period last year, the number awaiting admission after a doctor decided they needed a bed rose by 21%, to an average of 148 a day.
Of the 1,300 beds that could not be used in March, over 830 were occupied by patients ready to be discharged but could not be released because they needed a nursing home place, long-term public bed, or a home-care package.
The hospitals with the largest number of patients occupying acute beds who were ready for discharge were all in Dublin: St James's (147 beds affected); Beaumont Hospital (127 beds affected); and the Mater Hospital (104 beds).
The figures cover February and March and are contained in the HSE's latest performance report.
