The Ninth Parliament since independence, which was consigned to the history books yesterday, will be remembered mostly for the large number of EU related laws that were enacted.
It will also be remembered for the comfortable majority of five seats enjoyed by the government, the high number of sittings that were held - 875 - and the 238 calls for quorum, including five in just one sitting. Sittings had to be called off eight times due to lack of quorum.
The House approved a total of 122 laws - 31 each in 2001 and 2002, 30 in the year 2000, 23 in 1999, four this year and three in 1998.
Of note for parliamentary historians was how the House for the first time considered a motion for the impeachment of a judge - and how the motion did not achieve the required two-thirds majority after all but one of the opposition MPs voted against.
A two-thirds majority was also not achieved on a bill to amend the clauses of the Constitution dealing with the holding of elections, including a wider definition of the qualification of voters to include those who would have spent some time living abroad.
The government failed to win over the opposition for constitutional amendments involving the Office of the Attorney General, but the Constitution was however amended to include provisions on local councils.
The first Act approved by the new parliament after the 1998 elections was the Appropriation Act, followed by a bill to reintroduce Value Added Tax.
The last two bills to make it through the House were the Set-Off and Netting on Insolvency Bill, which includes provisions to help ailing companies recover, and the Medicines Bill.
Among the bills approved in 1999 was the Malta Travel and Tourism Services Bill, which led to the setting up of the Malta Tourism Authority. A bill for the setting up of the authority had also been debated under the Labour government in 1998 but could only get half way through the committee stage after Dom Mintoff voted against some of the clauses and the House was adjourned and later dissolved.
Indeed, this was the first parliament since the war that did not include Mr Mintoff - he did not stand for re-election in 1998 after his break from the Labour leadership.
The "father of the House" in the last parliament was the Speaker, Anton Tabone, who was first elected in 1966. Dr Eddie Fenech Adami was co-opted to the House shortly after.
Another significant law, the first to be enacted in the new millennium, was the Equal Opportunities (Persons with Disability) Act. The year 2000 also saw the enactment of a number of trade and consumer related laws including those on intellectual property rights, copyright, trademarks, patents, consumer affairs and competition.
Legislation also created the Malta Standards Authority, the Malta Communications Authority, the Malta Statistics Authority, the Occupational Health and Safety Authority and the Malta Crafts Council. A bill on refugees also became law, leading to the appointment of the Refugees Commissioner.
The foundations of legislation regulating the use of information technology were laid in 2001 with laws on electronic commerce and data protection.
That year saw the Industrial Development Act replaced by the Business Promotion Act. The laws regulating fisheries were updated and consolidated in the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act and much the same happened for the agriculture sector with the Pesticides Control Act, the Plant Quarantine Act, the Wine Act, the Veterinary Service Act.
The procedures of the Planning Authority were updated with a bill amending the Development Planning Act, which had followed close on the heels of a new Environment Protection Act.
The Malta Council for Economic and Social Development was established by law.
The House in 2001 also approved the Animal Welfare Act, though not without disagreement between the government and the opposition.
Consumer legislation continued to be consolidated with the enactment of the Product Safety Act.
Other legislative milestones of this legislature were the extensive reform of the Criminal Code and the new Employment and Industrial Relations Act last year. The House also spent many sittings on the Cultural Heritage Bill, which set up a new structure to oversee Malta's cultural heritage. Other bills approved last year included that regulating the sports sector and the new police law.
The Gender Equality Bill was approved this year.
The dissolution of the House yesterday means that two bills have now lapsed - the Internal Audit Bill, which had already been given a second reading, and a bill for the appointment of a commissioner for children. The debate which started nearly four years ago on a motion by the prime minister on the situation in the country was also never completed. The motion had condemned the MLP and the GWU for their actions after the first budget of this legislature.
Debate in the House was sometimes bitter and often repetitive, and humour all but disappeared. A notable exception was the last sitting before Christmas in the year 2000 when Nationalist MP Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici in true Christmas sprit drew guffaws from both sides of the House.
Over the past four years the House debated, and defeated, two no confidence motions in the Speaker and another in the deputy speaker.
Several non-legislative motions were debated, notable one which approved the outcome of the negotiations with the EU and authorised the government to hold the EU membership referendum, the first referendum since Independence. The House also held a fierce debate following comments made by the Ombudsman to a newspaper.
MPs asked almost 40,000 parliamentary questions. Labour MP Noel Farrugia asked the largest number and was also the MP who spoke most in the chamber, contributing to practically every debate and dominating question time in the morning sittings. In contrast, Nationalist MP Claude Muscat is believed to have only spoken three times in the House in this legislature. He also sat on the Public Accounts Committee.