Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis na Teachtaí as ucht an deis seo a thabhairt dom cur síos a dhéanamh ar an gceist seo. I thank the Deputies for raising the issue. I am aware that the National Coalminers Group was in Leinster House today seeking to advance its campaign for a scheme of compensation in respect of the illnesses miners have acquired as a result of working in coalmines. In this regard, I was pleased to facilitate my colleague, Deputy Aylward, in arranging for an official of my Department, together with officials from the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and the Department of Health and Children, to meet earlier today with a delegation from the group to hear their concerns at first hand.

As the Deputy will be aware, the primary role of my Department in regard to this issue relates to the provisions of the occupational injuries scheme and specifically to the disablement pension payable under that scheme. The occupational injuries scheme is a compensation payment for loss of faculty arising out of or in the course of insurable employment. The legislation governing the occupational injuries scheme provides entitlement to benefit for persons suffering from certain prescribed diseases which are listed in the legislation and where those persons have contracted that disease in the course of their employment.

Employment under a contract of service as a miner is insurable for occupational injuries benefit under the Social Welfare Acts. Miners who are unable to work due to an accident arising from their employment may be entitled to occupational injury benefit for the first 26 weeks of their claims. If their incapacity extends beyond that period, they may receive illness benefit or invalidity pension, subject to meeting the qualifying conditions for these payments.

Miners may be entitled to disablement benefit if they suffer a loss of physical or mental faculty as a result of an accident at work or a disease prescribed in legislation that they contracted at work. Medical assessments are undertaken in all such cases to determine the degree of disablement, which is calculated by comparison of the state of health of the applicant with a person of the same age and gender. Miners who contracted the prescribed disease pneumoconiosis are entitled to disablement benefit. While I appreciate the position in which the miners concerned now find themselves, I am obliged to reiterate that a compensation package specifically for former miners would be outside the remit of the occupational injuries benefit scheme of my Department.

The issue debated here has been the subject of several parliamentary inquiries from a number of Deputies and has been aired most recently at the Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. In the course of that meeting and again at the meeting held with the group earlier today, it was argued that the list of prescribed diseases under the occupational injuries scheme should be extended, and reference was made in particular to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD, in this regard. My Department has considered whether COPD should be added to the list of prescribed diseases but has been advised that COPD is a common clinical condition and one of the leading causes of death after heart disease, cancer and stroke. It is not a condition that is specifically linked to a particular occupation and it is not possible to establish a causal link between coal mining, or any other occupation, and the experience of COPD. Smoking is by far the most common cause of COPD.

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