Rolling together controversial regulations on race reporting in the workplace with the annual employment survey could be on the cards, a Government Minister said yesterday.

But Development and Opportunity Minister Terry Lister dismissed Opposition claims that the Commission for Unity and Racial Equality rules would duplicate information already gathered in the yearly jobs' assessment.

Mr. Lister said: "We've used the same race configuration. While we want to keep them separate and not get caught up with an Opposition red herring, which is what it is, we have been clever enough so we could do that down the road.

"At some point we may decide that we want to look at the bases, link up these two studies and go with that but that would be in the future.'' Mr. Lister was speaking after Shadow Health and Social Services Minister Kim Young said the Employment Survey already contained most of the information CURE was looking for.

And she called for the extra cash needed to collect the CURE information to be pumped into urgent social problems like affordable housing.

Ms Young admitted that the Employment Survey did not include a section on salaries but said that could easily be added.

She also backed calls from lawyer Elizabeth Christopher for gender to be given as much weight as race to ensure fairness on the job.

But Mr. Lister insisted: "The Employment Survey doesn't provide the information on a company basis in the form and manner we need. To expand it and produce it in the form we need would make these forms very cumbersome which is something the Opposition have complained about in relation to CURE.'' He pointed out that the Employment Survey was carried out in August -- the peak employment period -- while the CURE regulations would be a December survey, which would cut out the enormous amount of summer jobs and give a clearer picture of race in the workplace from full-time, permanent posts.

Mr. Lister said: "Basically, the reality is there are two different sets of goals from the Employment Survey and CURE.

"In designing what we've done with CURE, we've made it as similar to the Employment Survey as we possibly can so if at some point in the future we wanted to combine the approach we could because we have the same bases.'' He said the Opposition would probably have complained if a similar format had not been used.

However he added: "We're talking about two different Ministries and there are two different year ends. The Employment Survey always looked at August because that's when employment is at its highest. We have taken December because that's when employment is at its lowest.'' Mr. Lister said: "We have specific requests targeted on specific areas. It's purely race we're looking at.

"It has been suggested we look at gender bases and we've resisted that. The reason we're doing that is there is enough noise being made by those who perceive the information being requested will create huge hardship. To add to that the gender mix will only raise the level of noise.'' The original regulations applied to all firms with ten or more employees.

Firms would have to register with CURE and provide an annual breakdown on race, employment level and income of employees.

Firms would also have to provide information on the racial breakdown of job applicants and a list of people who quit by race and reason.

Employees would have to fill in forms giving their ethnic origin, job, pay and perks, while job applicants would be required to give race and post applied for.

Business representatives said -- while they supported equal opportunities -- the CURE regulations meant too much red tape and bureaucracy and complained they had not had the opportunity to see the final version before the rules were tabled in the House.