The discrete-delay system

(

is invertible,

is the delay) is said to be degenerate with respect to the vector

if

, for all choices of initial points

. In this note we shall show that if the above system is degenerate, then the minmum value of l
0is (

). Given

, necessary and sufficient conditions are obtained such that the above system is degenerate at

, and the construction of

is given in this case. These constructions are used to find delayed state-feedback controls for the linear discrete system to steer the output to zero in a minimum number of steps.