asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he will state whether, as a result of the medical examination made on the health of coal miners in this country, as reported in an Irish medical journal this month, he is now agreeable to schedule pneumoconiosis as an industrial disease.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Pneumoconiosis.
I would like to refer the Deputy to the reply which I gave on the 20th March last to his question on the same subject. The examination mentioned in that reply is proceeding. The problem of providing for compensation for pneumoconiosis lies chiefly in the long period of development of the disease and peculiar difficulties in its diagnosis.
For years we have been pleading for this disease to be scheduled as an industrial disease, and so I am at a loss to understand what is the cause of the delay. Three doctors have reported on it recently, and, out of 1,333 miners examined, 78 were found to be infected. Of the 1,044 miners in the Castlecomer mines, 863 were examined. It was found that 56 and 18 had this disease of pneumoconiosis. This has been going on for years.
The Deputy should understand that the object of a question is to elicit information and not to make a speech.
I am anxious to know what is the cause of the delay in making this a scheduled industrial disease. If the Parliamentary Secretary will read an article in this month's journal of the Medical Council he will be convinced, I think, that it should have been made a scheduled industrial disease long before now.
I should like to know if the Parliamentary Secretary has seen the article in the Irish Medical Association's Journal dealing with his topic within the last fortnight?
The Minister has this matter under active review. At his request the Medical Research Council are gathering information through the Council's National Tuberculosis Survey. They have gone to Castlecomer and other places. The examination is not yet complete. A special request has gone out from the Department of Health to the Medical Council for a further report on the dependability and practicability of diagnosis of the disease from X-ray films, and as to whether sufficient information is available, or is likely to be available, soon as to the time the disease takes to develop. In England, where there is a lot of this disease, they have great difficulties. They scrapped the scheme they had at the end of 1948.
They have scrapped it in England and they have gone further by allowing for three years the full amount; if the disease breaks out he will get Workmen's Compensation even though he is not in the industry. I would ask the Minister to read the Medical Journal of this month and he will see the examination it gives the subject.
The matter is under active and immediate consideration.
It is that for the last nine years.