The government is not expected to appeal against a European Court of Human Rights judgment that ordered it to pay €226,000 in compensation to 19 dockyard workers poisoned by asbestos.

The ECHR found last July that the government “knew or ought to have known of the dangers arising from exposure to asbestos at least as from the early 1970s”.

A decision delivered by seven judges, including former chief justice Vincent DeGaetano, said the former workers, whose rights to life and respect for private and family life were violated, should be compensated.

The government has three months to file an appeal before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights.

The men were not given adequate safeguards

A spokesman for the Justice Ministry said: “Following an exhaustive examination of the facts and the legal issues involved in the decision and of the criteria normally used to allow recourse to the Grand Chamber, it is not likely that an application for reference to the Grand Chamber will be filed”.

Led by lawyer Juliette Galea, the 18 workers and relatives of a man who died in 2009 from mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer caused by asbestos, had been fighting their legal battle for the past five years. Another two of the men died over the past 12 months.

The ECHR said the men had not been given adequate safeguards against the dangers of asbestos, either through protective clothing or information, between the 1950s and the early 2000s when they stopped working.

Particles of the mineral fibre in the air during repairs were inhaled and settled on the men’s clothing, also affecting their families, and the former workers suffered respiratory problems and plaques, which are areas of calcification in the lungs.

The symptoms of mesothelioma or asbestosis – irreversible lung scarring – do not show up until many years after the initial exposure.