asked the Minister for Health the number of visually-impaired as compared to hearing-impaired people there are in Ireland; and the number in each group who are of schoolgoing age.
Written Answers. - Visually Impaired People.
158.
Because of the varying degrees of visual and hearing impairment, accurate statistics on the numbers suffering from these impairments are not available. It is, however, estimated that approximately 6,000 suffer from partial or total blindness and approximately 3 per cent of the population, in excess of 100,000 people, suffer from a marked hearing loss, of which 6,500 are estimated to be profoundly deaf. I understand that there are about 1,500 hearing-impaired children in ordinary schools and about 800 in special schools. There are about 200 children with varying degrees of visual impairment in ordinary schools and about 150 in special schools.