The Minister for Health has insisted that ambulance response times are being cut and that "progress is being made at pace".
But right across the Opposition benches, there were calls for urgent action to tackle what was described as a "life and death" crisis gripping the National Ambulance Service (NAS).
Stephen Donnelly accused Sinn Féin of claiming that front-line healthcare workers are "failing in their jobs".
But its spokesperson on health warned that the Government's "dangerous" lack of support for those workers is putting lives at risk.
Tabling a Private Members' Motion, David Cullinane said that under-resourced paramedics - who "deserve our support" - are being "over-worked, doing huge amounts of over-time".
Ambulance response times are now 50% slower than they were in 2009, he said.
The official target is that 80% of life-threatening incidents are responded to within 19 minutes, Mr Cullinane said.
But it now takes an average of 27 minutes and this rises to 33 minutes in the south east, he added.
Mr Cullinane said: "This includes those in serious cardiac arrest", the deputy told the House, a situation he condemned as "absolutely unacceptable".
Out of 30,000 call-outs in January 2022, Mr Donnelly responded, 35 people waited for more than two hours.
This fell to 30 people waiting over two hours for an ambulance this January, he added.
Social Democrats TD Róisín Shortall noted that the turn-around time for Dublin hospitals has risen by a third, to 39 minutes, "up ten minutes from 2020".
When Dublin Fire Brigade asked the NAS for an ambulance last year, she revealed, fewer than one-quarter of its requests were met.
Martin Kenny, Sinn Féin TD for Sligo-Leitrim, said that waiting times "have gone through the roof in rural areas".
Solidarity-PBP's Bríd Smith said that hospital closures had hit services in rural Ireland hard.
"Dynamic deployment has been a disaster for people", Mr Kenny said.
It may sound "like NATO manoeuvres", but it sees ambulances "responding to calls way outside of their area", he added.
"The local service has been depleted", Mr Kenny said, which "destroys peoples' confidence" that they will get the care they need.
Minister Donnelly said that a new national plan, which has been reviewed by the Health Service Executive, is now with his department.
