better facilities for the hearing impaired on Wednesday night.

Leon (Jimmy) Williams (PLP) picked up on Jennifer Jeffers-Grant's message to Hamilton Rotarians earlier in the week which highlighted how deaf people in Bermuda felt left out.

And using signing to emphasise his point, Mr. Williams told MPs during the Motion to Adjourn that: "When I turn my TV on, I can hear.

"Yesterday there was a speaker at the Rotary Club. That speaker was trying to tell Bermuda how the people who are hard of hearing, that most of us call deaf, how a fire broke out in a house and the difficulties they had to make contact because we don't have (TTY relays) in Bermuda.'' Mrs. Jeffers-Grant is the chairperson of the First International Conference on Deafness in Bermuda to be held on November 17 to 22. She told Rotarians that the conference would be used to "bring the plight of the deaf to the attention of the population in general, as well as Government''.

Among the problems facing the hearing impaired are the lack of TTY relay systems, which allow the deaf to speak to people with full hearing on the telephone, and closed captions on local television programmes.

Mr. Williams said: "I am asking the Minister responsible for this area to give some attention to the hard of hearing. We must look after all our people ... we must as people who can hear.'' Ann Cartwright DeCouto (UBP) agreed with Mr. Williams.

"This seems to be something we can do something about and something we can do something about quickly.'' She called on Government and the private sector to tackle the phone and TV problems the hard of hearing encountered in Bermuda as soon as possible.