Asbestos could become the Government's latest compensation problem following confirmation that semi-state companies are facing dozens of claims from workers who say their health was damaged by working with the material.
Fourteen former staff and their families are suing the ESB for cancer or serious respiratory illnesses they contracted following asbestos exposure, a board spokesman confirmed yesterday.
Telecom Eireann is facing an unspecified number of cases. Irish Ferries and a number of other shipping companies are also being sued by workers who used asbestos for a 30-year period up to the mid-1970s.
If successful, the cases could cost the companies - and indirectly the taxpayer - millions of pounds in damages.
An ESB spokesman last night acknowledged it was facing legal action, but declined to comment on the specific cases. Virtually all the asbestos used in power plants and other installations had been removed and disposed of abroad, he said.
The only remaining asbestos was in inaccessible parts of machinery, such as inside gaskets and boilers.
Last year it was revealed that the company had dumped 20 tonnes of asbestos removed from Portarlington power station up to 1970 in local bogs. This has since been sent to Germany for disposal.
A spokeswoman for Telecom confirmed the company was facing legal action over asbestos. She declined to give details.
In the autumn the High Court is due to hear cases brought by eight former dockers who handled asbestos destined for Whitegate oil refinery in their work at Cork Harbour. Four companies are being sued, B & I, Irish Ferries, Clyde Shipping and D.F. Doyle and Co, a Cork stevedoring firm.
Some of the cases are being taken by the families of former dockers who died from a lung cancer known as mesothelioma. The ESB began using asbestos in the late 1940s, when it was widely regarded as a miracle product. In subsequent decades it was widely used in many industries for insulation. In 1966 research established that high concentrations of airborne asbestos fibres could cause illness.
According to an ESB spokesman, the company in 1968 became the first in Ireland to decide not to use asbestos "where there was an alternative". From the early 1970s staff dealing with the material were provided with protective equipment, and from 1980 measures were taken to remove it.
The first Irish regulations governing people working with asbestos appeared in a Factory Act in 1972. It was not until 1989 that regulations set down permissible limits of exposure to asbestos, the spokesman said. Some forms of less harmful asbestos can still be legally used.
Because it can take more than 30 years for asbestos-related illnesses to manifest themselves, the incidence of mesothelioma is only now starting to rise. Currently there are about 10 cases a year, but this is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades.
