OUR front page today highlights the tragic plight of retired miner Bill Cook.

His lungs function at barely 15 per cent of their capacity. He survives on a daily routine of medication and 16 hours linked up to an oxygen mask.

There is no doubt his chronic illness derives from the 42 years he worked as a miner in the Durham Coalfield.

Test after test he has had to undergo throughout much of his retirement have proved as much.

Yet Mr Cook is still been made to wait for compensation payments to which he is so clearly entitled.

And he will have to endure the ordeal of yet more tests to prove the blindingly obvious before the Department of Trade and Industry will consider making an award.

We do not doubt the sincerity of Government ministers when they say they are striving to reach settlements as quickly as possible.

Nevertheless, we can fully understand the anger of families of Mr Cook and thousands of other retired miners, and their feeling that the Government may be dragging heels to reduce the final compensation bill.

Since miners won their drawn-out legal battle for compensation last year, 110,000 claims have been lodged. Thus far only one miner has received a full pay-out. Many more will have died as a direct result of their industrial illness.

This shoddy state of affairs does not suggest the DTI is acting as expeditiously as possible.

The time for sympathy from the Government has passed. The time has come for action.

Men who so clearly chronically ill because they worked hard in deplorable underground conditions to support themselves and their families should not be put through the ordeal of yet more extensive medical examinations.

When they are suffering as much as Mr Cook, they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

Surely ministers have the scope to introduce a fast-track system to make immediate compensation payments in the most acute cases.

The court case victory last year promised to end a gross injustice.

It is time now for the Government to deliver justice to the miners.