asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will outline the special provision his Department have made for the employment of disabled persons, and the proposals, if any, to increase the number.

My Department currently employ about 160 people who suffer from disability. They are also represented on the inter-departmental committee set up by the Minister for Labour with a view to implementing a 3 per cent quota system for the employment of disabled people in the public service. The Department are examining the matter with a view to seeing how the 3 per cent quota can be met.

Would the Minister give an indication what percentage would apply now in regard to the 160 who do qualify as being disabled? What percentage would that be of the entire number?

It would be 160 in approximately 28,000.

That is a little short of 3 per cent.

It is.

When will the number be 3 per cent?

We are tied to the Civil Service Commission on most aspects of employment and with them lies the regulation concerning that aspect. Where we have direct discretion in employment, the Department regularly contact the National Rehabilitation Board, who are concerned with the rehabilitation and placement in gainful employment of persons who suffer from physical or mental disability. The Department forward notices of vacancies for unestablished night telephonists to the board's placement officer at the same time as nominations are sought for the vacancies from the National Manpower Service. In addition to that the Department examine posts which would be suitable for the employment of disabled people, as it is not very easy to slot those people into positions which are suitable to them. We are doing our utmost to do so. From the point of view acceptable to the Civil Service Commission we have already contacted the National Rehabilitation Board to see if we can help further.

Is it not the position that the Minister has taken no steps to take on disabled people, that these 160 are probably the only disabled people who have been taken on?

Deputy Quinn has been endeavouring to ask a supplementary.

Does the Minister not accept that the correct figure for disabled people employed by his Department—if we take his figure of 28,000—is somewhere in the region of 800 people and that the deficit is really unacceptably large? Would the Minister not accept that if we were to rely on the Civil Service Commission and any of the established agencies the percentage would remain as low as it always has been, which is exactly the grouse that the disabled people have had? Could the Minister outline quite clearly what steps he has taken in addition to the inadequate description he has given from his background brief?

We are examining the matter with the intention of employing to the maximum of our ability the 3 per cent quota. I am totally in favour of ensuring that that proposal will be fully implemented. I went even further in my reply to say that where we have authority to give employment we have gone outside all the bounds to try to implement that policy.

In a Government that can increase the number of Minister of State from ten to 15 without any apparent justification does the Minister of State not think that in this instance he could cut through some of the red tape self-created by the bureaucracy and reach this quota figure fairly quickly?

We are doing that.

Question No. 34.

At present we have only one half; when will we get 3 per cent, one-sixth of the quota?

It is a highly technical area and we are doing our utmost to implement it.