WE WELCOME the publication of figures today which show that former Gwent miners, or their families, received £88m in compensation for chest diseases.

If nothing else the staggering amount of money paid out illustrates the extent of the problems which existed locally.

We were well aware of that when we launched our Justice for Miners campaign way back in 1999 with the aim of speeding up the whole process and ridding the administration of some of the more complex, time consuming delays.

A lot of people worked very hard on the whole process.

Our role was to highlight the problems and thanks to persistence and the support of tens of thousands of our readers we did manage to get some ministers involved who did help us make a difference.

Notable among them were former Welsh secretary Peter Hain and Islwyn MP Don Touhig both of whom managed to break down barriers that we had come up against.

At the end of the day though this was not about us but was about the former miners who had ruined their health digging coal out of the ground.

The tragedy was that so many of them died before receiving the compensation which was their due.