The European Commission said yesterday it would take legal action against Ireland and 22 other EU states for breaching regulations governing the working time of employees, writes Jamie Smyth in Brussels

The threat levied by employment commissioner Vladimir Spidla followed the breakdown of emergency talks in Brussels designed to find a compromise over the working time directive.

The directive is a complex piece of legislation that sets regulations on hours of work to protect the health and safety of workers. It limits the maximum length of a working week to 48 hours in seven days, and sets a minimum rest period of 11 hours each day. Several states, notably the UK and Estonia, have opted out of the directive, prompting a two-year dispute with countries such as France, Italy and Spain.

At yesterday's meeting of EU labour ministers, a compromise proposal that would have enabled states to allow employees to work a maximum of 60 hours a week was blocked by France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Cyprus.

The group of five member states vetoed the proposal in the council because it did not set a firm deadline for states such as Britain and Estonia to end their existing opt out from the working time regulations.

The group supporting more flexible rules argued they need the opt out to leave the decision on the length of the working week to employees and to ensure their emergency services functioned.

However, the failure of the talks on the revision of the working time directive means that 23 out of the 25 EU member states remain in breach of European law following two rulings by the European Court of Justice. These judgments found that "on-call" time should be paid at the full working rate and caused alarm in business circles particularly the healthcare sector, where doctors and other staff often work "on call".

Minister of State for Labour Tony Killeen said that Ireland was technically in breach of two minor provisions, the definition of working time under the directive and mandatory compensated rest periods for employees, who work for more than 13 hours in succession.

However, he said many other member states were in a worse legal position and he expected a solution could be found.

He said healthcare in the Republic would not be dramatically affected, even if the commission enforced the new rules by taking legal action. Earlier, Mr Spidla confirmed the commission would take legal action.

"We need to be logical . . . if a country does not respect the treaty, we must bring proceedings against it," he said.