More than 160 workers of Irish Ispat (in voluntary liquidation) - formerly Irish Steel - lost their High Court action yesterday in which they sought to be considered preferential creditors (ranking alongside the Revenue Commissioners) in their claims that they are entitled to damages for hearing loss.

Ms Justice Mella Carroll in a reserved judgment said the claim for preferential status arose only in respect of post-June 1986 damage claims. All 162 workers involved alleged their hearing loss was caused by an accident or series of accidents.

The company's liquidator claimed the alleged hearing loss was the result of ongoing exposure to noise levels during the course of employment and caused by a process of work and not by accidents.

The judge decided the workers were not entitled to preferential status on "a fictitious ground that their injuries resulted by accident".

Ms Justice Carroll said that, when the law was applied to the facts of the case, it appeared to her that the repeated incidents of impulse noise from whatever source were not unexpected or fortuitous.

They did not occur by chance but as a result of the manufacturing process carried out in the foundry and the mill.

It would be straining the meaning of language, said Ms Justice Carroll, to hold that every time a length of steel struck "a halt" that it happened by accident; that every time a saw emitted a loud high noise, it was an accident; or that the emptying of a bucket into the furnace with resultant noise happened by accident.

The judge agreed to defer the making of her order dismissing the workers' action for 21 days to allow legal advisers to the 162 workers to be notified of her decision so that those workers could consider whether to appeal her findings to the Supreme Court.