SIXTEEN months after the Government promised to compensate miners whose lungs were wrecked in the pits, only one man out of more than 110,000 who have applied for cash has received his due.

Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) officials yesterday admitted "naivety" in tackling the mammoth pile of compensations claims that have flooded in since a historic High Court deal was struck in March last year.

Solicitors representing thousands of North-East ex-miners and their widows said the handling of the claims was dismal, and called for the DTI to redouble its efforts before many claimants die.

It is already too late for men such as William Morson, of Leadgate, near Consett, who died in May aged 74. But his daughters have pledged to fight on for compensation.

The most recent figures available yesterday showed that only seven former North-East pit workers with lung disease had reached a medical assessment panel. This is the final stage before compensation - usually payments of between £1,500 and £20,000 - can be paid.

To make matters worse, more than 2,400 men who claim they have been crippled by inhaling coal dust are joining the queue each month.

Emphysema sufferer Ben Aitken, 78, from Wheatley Hill, County Durham, is one of those waiting.

His son, Cambridge businessman Ian Aitken, said: "My dad gets a pension for emphysema but he has had to go through hoops over this claim. They promised to sort this out a year ago. Can't the Prime Minister sort out one of his own three miles from his office?"

Mr Aitken, 78, who struggles for breath if he exerts himself after 46 years underground, partially blames his wife's recent death on the strain of waiting for his claim to be settled.

"It's a bloody shambles," said Mr Aitken, a life-long Labour supporter. "The people around here are all saying Tony Blair is letting us down."

So far, 111,560 miners and their widows have claimed compensation for chronic chest conditions, such as emphysema.

Twenty-three former miners who were part of the original test claim have received their compensation.

But only one ex-pitman, from Barnsley, who claimed through the national scheme that followed, has received his full settlement.

Another 20,153 have accepted relatively low offers at an early stage in the process, rather than join the queue to make a full claim. A total of £65m has been paid out.

The outlook is a little brighter for miners or their dependants who have claimed compensation for vibration-related injuries.

DTI officials say so far 15,417 out of 73,869 claims for Vibration White Finger have been settled and a total of £138.3m has been paid out.

Roger Maddocks, a partner with Thompsons of Newcastle, the solicitors representing most of the County Durham claimants, said: "Performance in implementing the medical assessment process to date has been dismal.

"Unless there is a significant and sustained improvement it will take substantially longer than the two to three years estimated to process existing claims."

A DTI spokeswoman admitted that Energy Minister Helen Liddle's pledge five months ago to speed up the process, possibly up to a rate of 2,500 a month, had so far failed to materialise.

She said: "When the whole thing started, we were quite optimistic about how quickly it could be done. That was down to over-optimism and naivety."

However, more than 2,200 medical assessment appointments had now been made and the men should be processed in the next few months. More than 52,000 initial tests had been carried out on men claiming respiratory damages, including 6,300 in the North-East.

"This is the largest personal injury litigation claim in legal history - if people went through the courts it could take 15 to 20 years," added the spokeswoman.

John Burton, Tony Blair's constituency agent, said his office had contacted Mrs Liddell on Mr Aitken's behalf last year. "We understand his case is going to be dealt with in the immediate future," he said.

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