‘Bill died from the pressure of coughing’

LONG after the country’s coal mines closed, the men who chipped away at the seams struggle for breath, with the industry’s filthy legacy lying on their lungs.

These miners toiled to keep production going in Kilkenny, Tipperary, Laois and Roscommon until the 1990s.

And yesterday they came “cap in hand” to the Oireachtas asking for compensation for the state’s failure to protect them from the fumes and dust which resulted in them suffering from pneumoconiosis, asthma, heart disease and deafness.