There is no doubt that paying anything like Lm50 a year in rent as a tenant while the landlord is responsible for repairs is wrong. There is no doubt that the right of inheritance in the old private lets is even more wrong and needs to be removed with some protection for the genuine elderly tenant who may well have a pensioner low-income son or, more often, a daughter living with him or her. I will only focus on residential lets but the situation in commercial lets is even more scandalous and must be put right too.

All that is wrong and must be put right. It is also wrong, however, to mislead the public in the months leading up to a possible referendum so that people will sign up even if they have the wrong impression. The misleading impression being transmitted is this: Reform the rent laws and there will be a supply of affordable housing on the market, both in terms of lower priced units for sale and , they would have us believe, for rent too.

This is staggeringly inaccurate. Let's talk about housing for rent first.

Reforming the rent laws will not give this a country a supply of decent and affordable housing for low income single people and families. The properties which are empty now, an amazing quarter of all our housing if we include some which are partially used, can easily be rented out today. New rental agreements, thanks to the new rent laws of 1995, mean landlords can rent and tenants have almost no protection whatsoever. There is in fact a booming rental sector. It is not declared because new landlords will not pay 35 per cent of their supposed profit in tax but we know at the Housing Authority that new lets are happening, the sector is booming and is very expensive.

The real question then is: Why are landlords not renting out more of these units? It is not the old rent laws that are stopping them but the fear of the return of the requisition. I believe only one proper survey has been done of these landlords. I saw that survey, and 90 per cent said they would not want to rent to Maltese people under any circumstances but particularly because of the fear of the requisition returning. So the real problem is not the rent laws, because landlords are aware of the changes made post-1995, but the possible return of the requisition!

I have often suggested that the promise not to bring back the requisition should be enshrined in the Constitution in order to ensure that landlords feel really secure. They do not, and with good reason.

The rent laws are not the only injustice suffered by many land and property owners in Malta. Many had their land taken from them and were compensated with a pittance. Many had their houses requisitioned, although these are now slowly being returned as they become vacant.

The housing sector is riddled with injustices of the past, although the result has also been an amazingly well housed population. However, this was achieved at the expense of many and this should be publicly acknowledged.

There are also wild claims that getting rid of the old rent laws will produce more affordable housing for sale. I don't know where some people live and what housing polices or studies they have ever made but this is nonsense particularly in our context. I can understand the political reason for saying this. I can understand how clever, politically, the timing is. At a time when prices have shot up enormously anybody who pretends he has a solution to high house prices is going to get public support. But is it right to mislead? Is it right to give false hope?

All the owners of empty houses in Malta could sell them today if they wanted to. Such a move would possibly bring down prices. But why aren't they doing this? The old rent laws are only stopping the sale of units with sitting tenants. Twenty-five per cent of our homes are empty and have no tenants in them at all! So why are the owners not putting their property on the market for sale?

The reasons are complex but they have absolutely nothing to do with the rent laws. Some are caught up in inheritance issues. But many owners are just happy to sit on them, comfortable in the knowledge that the land on which these empty houses stand is always going up in price. The more dilapidated they become, the easier perhaps to pull them down and build a block of flats or whatever. So reforming he rent laws will not dampen prices.

It is very wrong to give false hope to those who cannot afford either to buy at today's prices or to rent at the new post-1995 liberalised rent levels. The private sector is rightly tired of subsidising the tenant in Malta.

The only real way to have a more affordable supply is for the government to invest more in housing. That means taxes, because no landlord today will rent out or sell his or her property cheaply.

Quite rightly if the government wants a supply of affordable housing it will have to pay for it. There is no genuine way around this, whatever the wild political claims being made lately to try and attract support. The spirit behind the referendum may be right. But the promises being made are wrong. And they know it...

Ms Micallef is chairman of the Housing Authority.