Asbestos claims - Taxpayers face huge claims bill

COMPENSATION payments totalling over £1 million for 11 Irish victims of asbestos-related diseases underline the potential fallout of a health catastrophe that promises to overshadow the army deafness crisis.

With the State facing a virtual avalanche of claims from workers who claim they were exposed to the hazardous product, the final cost to taxpayers could run to tens of millions of euros.

Now scarring one out of every seven people in the western countries, asbestos is estimated to be killing around 30,000 people a year. The scale of health problems associated with asbestos in this country is reflected in the fact that almost half of the personal injury claims which the State is facing relate to the cancer-causing product.

According to latest figures, the 11 claims so far settled with the State amount to more than 1 million. With some 460 claims outstanding, the final bill could run to tens of millions.

Internationally, the incidence of disease is now snowballing. For over half a century, asbestos had a wide variety of applications, ranging from insulation and fire protection to roofing and guttering in the building industry, furnace-lining in power stations and the manufacture of brake pads for cars and trucks.

In this country, asbestos was widely used in the building of schools, garda stations and government offices. To date, more than 2,500 buildings considered most at risk have been surveyed, but more than 3,500 remain to be examined.

Generally, asbestos does not pose a risk to health if it is undisturbed and in good condition. But when damaged, fibres are released into the air and if inhaled they can have serious health effects.

In Britain alone, more than 3,000 people die every year from cancer and other diseases caused by asbestos and numbers are expected to rise to 10,000 per year by 2020.

In the 1960s, when the carcinogenic nature of asbestos was discovered, many countries banned the material. Tragically, it continued to be widely used in Ireland.

Financially, the domino effect of asbestos can destabilise stock markets. This was evidenced recently when shares in Ireland’s major building materials group Cement Roadstone Holdings tumbled following news that an American distribution company acquired by CRH was facing multi-million dollar liability lawsuits.

Controversially, asbestos featured at the centre of one of Ireland’s biggest environmental controversies in the ’70s. At the time, the IDA was criticised for grant aiding a project undertaken by the US-based Raybestos group to manufacture brake pads here in the teeth of mounting controversy over asbestos.

Until it was shut down, waste from the factory was buried on a site owned by the IDA, provoking fears for the health of schoolchildren and sparking a prolonged and bitter protest campaign.

The fallout of the current asbestos crisis underlines the need for the Government not to use economic difficulties to justify slowing down the campaign to make public buildings safer.

It also highlights the urgency of eliciting a speedier response from industry and State bodies to serious health warnings about suspect products.

Tragically, as witnessed by the steadily mounting death toll and the current spate of compensation claims, there was a tardy response to the looming nightmare of asbestos.