EU employment ministers have failed to agree a deal that would have given temporary workers employed by agencies the same rights and the same pay as permanent employees, writes Denis Staunton, European Correspondent

Most member-states wanted to extend equal pay and full rights such as paid holidays to agency workers after six weeks in a job.

Ireland, Britain, Germany and Denmark insisted that agency workers should spend at least six months in a job before receiving the same pay and rights as permanent employees.

France, Luxembourg and Belgium rejected the deal for the opposite reason - they did not want to lift restrictions on the use of agency workers in some sectors, particularly in the public service.

The Minister of State for Employment, Mr Frank Fahy, said that obliging temporary agencies to give their employees the same rights as conventional employees in different firms could damage important sectors of the Irish economy.

"We have a very good sector that works very well. Flexibility suits many people. It suits industry, it suits the public sector and to disrupt this would be detrimental to those sectors. For instance, in the high-tech sector, temporary agency workers have contributed to growth," he said.

The Employment and Social Affairs Commissioner, Ms Anna Diamantopoulou, however, expressed deep disappointment at the ministers' failure to agree the deal.

She said that combining flexible labour markets with the protection of workers' rights was a key part of the Lisbon Agenda, which aims to make the EU the most dynamic, competitive, knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.

"The Lisbon summit called for a balance between flexibility and security for EU labour markets. There is no objective reason why the council could not have reached political agreement on this directive today.

"I am deeply disappointed, particularly given the long, hard hours which the presidency and member-states have devoted to clearing the way for agreement.

"Until this directive is adopted, temporary agency workers will risk remaining 'second-class' workers, and we have missed a chance to push forward the Lisbon agenda for more and better jobs," she said.

The share of temporary agency work in the EU has grown by about 10 per cent each year for the past decade but its share of total EU employment is still below 2 per cent.

Most temporary agency assignments in the EU are for a period of less than six months. In France and Spain, 80 per cent of assignments are for a period of less than one month.