We present the discovery and follow-up observations of 142 pulsars found in the Parkes 20-cm multibeam pulsar survey of the Galactic plane .
These new discoveries bring the total number of pulsars found by the survey to 742 .
In addition to tabulating spin and astrometric parameters , along with pulse width and flux density information , we present orbital characteristics for 13 binary pulsars which form part of the new sample .
Combining these results from another recent Parkes multibeam survey at high Galactic latitudes , we have a sample of 1008 normal pulsars which we use to carry out a determination of their Galactic distribution and birth rate .
We infer a total Galactic population of 30000 \pm 1100 potentially detectable pulsars ( i.e .
those beaming towards us ) having 1.4-GHz luminosities above 0.1 mJy kpc ^ { 2 } .
Adopting the Tauris & Manchester beaming model , this translates to a total of 155000 \pm 6000 active radio pulsars in the Galaxy above this luminosity limit .
Using a pulsar current analysis , we derive the birth rate of this population to be 1.4 \pm 0.2 pulsars per century .
An important conclusion from our work is that the inferred radial density function of pulsars depends strongly on the assumed distribution of free electrons in the Galaxy .
As a result , any analyses using the most recent electron model of Cordes & Lazio predict a dearth of pulsars in the inner Galaxy .
We show that this model can also bias the inferred pulsar scale height with respect to the Galactic plane .
Combining our results with other Parkes multibeam surveys we find that the population is best described by an exponential distribution with a scale height of 330 pc .
Surveys underway at Parkes and Arecibo are expected to improve the knowledge of the radial distribution outside the solar circle , and to discover several hundred new pulsars in the inner Galaxy .