Law on minimum employment level may be strengthened

The Commission for Persons with a Disability will recommend changes to a 1969 law which makes it compulsory for employers of more than 20 people to have people with a disability making up at least two per cent of their workforce.

Education Minister Louis Galea said during the presentation of the commission's annual report on the Equal Opportunities Act, that the problem with the 1969 law was that many employers in Malta employed less than 20 people.

When the bigger employers were approached they presented disability certificates from people within their workforce, even though they were not the people the law had intended to serve. This was a problem which had to be solved, he said.

The commission, Dr Galea added, was currently examining the law to recommend changes.

Marianne Debono, from the commission, said that between October last year and last September, the commission worked on 157 complaints of breach of the Equal Opportunities Act.

A total of 65 complaints had been pending from previous years and 92 were new. Since 2000, the commission has investigated 500 complaints, an average of 83 per year.

Forty-one per cent were related to accessibility, 22 per cent to services, 21 per cent to education, 11 per cent to employment, three per cent to housing and two per cent to insurance.

Thirty-nine per cent of complaints were against the government, 21 per cent against the private sector, 16 per cent against parastatal companies, 13 per cent against the Church and 11 per cent against local councils.

Cases included calls by five students with hearing problems for sign language interpreters at MCAST. The Education Ministry was now buying these services from the Organisation for the hearing impaired.

Another case was to do with the magazine Flimkien, issued by the College of Parish Priests and distributed in parishes. This had not been accessible to the blind and has now been made available in an audio form from parish priests.

Other complaints were related to accessibility in schools, churches and other public places.

Labour MP Marie Louise Coleiro Preca praised the commission for being vigilant to ensure law enforcement. She pointed out that people in society had different needs and services had to be appraised to ensure that they served the different needs of society.

She said that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority should be more vigilant and rigorous to ensure that the needs of people with a disability were served.

Moreover, a long-term plan was required to ensure that public places became accessible over a number of years.

Dr Galea said that for schools to become accessible, lifts had been bought but it was then found that sub-stations were needed for these to be operated.

He said special schools had been networked and were being developed into resource centres.

Many facilitators were being given basic training and the government was considering running special schools in line with normal ones on a kindergarten, primary and secondary school basis.