New MP highlights 'father unknown' problem

Nationalist MP Charlò Bonnici yesterday said it was disconcerting to note the large number of children who officially were of father unknown, not because this was true but because otherwise the parents would lose out on social benefits. This problem should be addressed.

He said that in the efforts to safeguard the interests of children, steps should be taken immediately to ensure the setting up of a register of paedophiles, even though every person was innocent until proven guilty.

The recent experience of a children's home in Gozo showed up the need for the government to help the Church care for such children who were more vulnerable than others. Foster caring should continue to be encouraged as a way to get children away from children's homes.

Robert Arrigo (PN) said host families were giving their time and parts of their home facilities to students but not being paid adequately. He said foreign students were paying much more than the host families were receiving from the schools.

Mr Bonnici and Mr Arrigo were two of the speakers taking part in the debate in reply to the President's speech at the state opening of Parliament.

Earlier, Noel Farrugia (MLP) said the President's speech had left him with a sense of story telling. Minister George Pullicino's promises of an enotheque could not make people forget that he had left Buskett to rot for five whole years and done nothing to establish the long-promised enotheque.

As the minister responsible for Mepa, for five years Mr Pullicino had led thousands of farmers and breeders up the garden path and left them with nothing. Where had the grading project at the Pitkali finished up, along with the bar coding and other promises?

Everybody was talking about global warming, but there was no effective hydrology plan for Malta. Every time it rained somewhat heavily, soil could still be seen running off with the rainwater.

Prices kept soaring, as did the cost of production, and profit margins were sliding in spite of longer working hours.

Malta had forever been dependent on international markets. It could no longer import from countries which suited it best, because it was now a member of the EU. With 400,000 inhabitants and one million visitors, it was paying importers better to import young cow meat than more expensive bull meat.

These issues must be addressed and solutions found.

It was also important to consider value for money, not just prices. Malta must see where it had fallen behind in meeting certain challenges and what could be done about it.

On salaries and wages, everyone was expecting some relief for families who were finding it hard to make ends meet because of exorbitant prices, especially for oil and cereals. It was people with money in their pockets that made the wheels of commerce go round. Mr Farrugia said Labour had always been consistent and its criticism had always been justified. He augured that the government would keep in line with its promises, otherwise it would find Labour to criticise it.

Stefan Buontempo (MLP) said the government had started off at the wrong end of the stick with its lack of consultation with the opposition on the decision to enrol Malta in the Partnership for Peace programme. The government spoke continuously on good governance, but important functions were still unmanned or did not have the resources they needed to operate.

There was not a person of Labour belief that had been appointed to any government board. On the other hand, rumours were rife that the current chairman of the Housing Authority was going to be replaced with a former Parliamentary Secretary, who had canvassed heavily for the party leadership efforts of the new Minister for Social Policy.

Dr Buontempo asked what guarantee there was that ST Microelectronics, who employed 2,200 people and was threatening to close down, would not ask for more government subsidies in a few years' time if they did stay in Malta. Serious questions also existed on the future of Malta Shipyards. The EU subsidies derogation ends this year. Did the government intend to privatise the enterprise? he asked. The situation was making it difficult even for those in employment with the two entities to get bank loans.

The yachting industry was not being appropriately managed, even though private firms had made a success of catering for its needs. It was the government that needed to decide on greater investments to host visiting yachts better, including with repair facilities. One of the first steps to be taken should be the decision to have more yacht marinas besides the four already in existence. Students should be encouraged to study to service the industry.

Dr Buontempo criticised cost and duration overruns of major projects and Mepa's credibility, asking how the authority was to be revamped.

Robert Arrigo (PN) said Malta's coastline was important, which was why people were very careful about all development permits that were issued along it. Complaints should be handled holistically.

From the tourism angle, soaring oil prices were having their toll on the operations of airlines, especially the low-cost ones, to the extent of some of them curtailing wintertime operations. Air Malta had vastly improved, but too many flights were still arriving late. Some of them were historically late, so why were no steps taken to rearrange the schedule?

Hotel overbooking was a problem that should not be taken lightly. Some hotels had even had to go so far as to reallocate overbooked tourists to hotels in Sicily. This could lead to bigger problems than non-availability of airline seats.

Cruise liner operations should be better managed: there were times when not enough coaches were available because too many cruise liners visited on the same day.

Following the advent of Schengen, people from certain nationalities were finding too many problems to get visas.

Mr Arrigo said little had been done to ease the plight of families in such localities as Sliema and St Julians whose peace was all too frequently broken by rowdy foreign students.

He called for urgent amendment of current rent laws, if anything to do away with the plight of owners who were being paid as little as Lm1 a month and expected to foot the bills for repairs.

Turning to local councils, Mr Arrigo said the time had come to consider allocating hamlets making part of larger areas a number of council seats according to the number of voters in each hamlet.

Charlò Bonnici said the President's speech reflected the needs of a rapidly-changing society. More and more senior citizens were electing to continue to be active, and the opportunity the government had offered them to do this in the budget for 2008 had been gladly taken up.

It was a modern phenomenon that people who were owners of low-paying rented homes were having to fork out much higher prices for homes for their own offspring. The sooner rent laws were amended, the better, he said.

Malta could not fall back from taking drastic steps to explore sources of alternative energy. Government departments must do their share of giving an example by utilising alternative methods.

On the arts front, the prospect of an arts village would give several promising youths an avenue to the success they deserved.

Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia spoke on urban regeneration and said that more commitment was needed by the Housing Authority in areas such as Valletta and Floriana.

He said that no flats had been built in Valletta during the past five years and certain projects in Floriana, promised for the past 20 years, had not yet been concluded.

Social assistance was subject to a means test which included all the family's income. This put traditional, typically-Maltese families at a disadvantage because one was more likely to get assistance if one declared oneself not to be married.

Dr Farrugia spoke on the self-employed, saying many worked even when sick. One had to find a way of helping them take better care of their lives. Check-ups in private hospitals for the self-employed who never took sick leave should be organised.

He called on the government to rethink whether it should continue providing really cheap medicine. It was better for the government to provide only the expensive medicine which people could not afford. Providing the cheaper medicine was putting off suppliers from importing them because of low demand.

Dr Farrugia said that to encourage more elderly to continue to live at home, health services in the home provided by the state should be strengthened even with the provision of physiotherapists and speech therapists.

It was also important that family doctors were linked with health centres. Currently, a family doctor could not order a thyroid function test for a patient but had to send the patient to the outpatients department.

Dr Farrugia said that to opt for the medicine course at university, one had to have all entry requirements graded B or better. If only one exam was obtained at C, the student did not have the opportunity to re-sit just this subject but had to re-sit everything. This was putting people off the course.

Concluding, he said more importance should be given to sports.

Labour MP Joe Mizzi said that as a full member of the EU, Malta had to follow the directive on emissions and by 2006 it had to submit a plan with an energy policy for Malta. But as yet, it only had a draft dated June 2006, which was never officially presented or discussed by Cabinet.

The government had failed to take action to safeguard the people's interests. There were now reports that a board was to be set up for this aim. He referred to a number of EU directives on energy, which he claimed the Maltese government was ignoring.

What was the government doing on alternative energy? What investment was it undertaking? Foreign consultants had warned the government that the Delimara power station was not in conformity with EU directives, let alone that of Marsa. Why had everything remained the same? Would the people now have to pay the fines? Was this the good governance the government spoke so much about?

What was happening in the energy sector in Malta? Why was the government in a state of panic? Unfortunately, the Nationalist government had never had a plan for the sector. Mr Mizzi asked whether the big projects being implemented were in line with EU directives.

He asked what investment had been undertaken in the past five years in alternative sources of energy. Malta was at the bottom rung of the ladder in the sector among EU countries.

He said that, from the opposition benches, he had prepared a plan on energy last year and he was willing to put this on the Table of the House in the interests of the country.

Mr Mizzi said that the Commission Against Corruption was toothless. The government said one thing and did another. Had this not been the case, the government would have asked Mr Godwin Cassar (the director general of Mepa) to resign following a frame-up that had been proved by a sentence by the Appeals' Court.

He said that he knew that Malta had oil resources and he was willing to help this government extract this commodity.

Nationalist MP Frederick Azzopardi said that the government's vision for the country was beneficial for everyone. Its programme stressed the environmental, economical and social sectors and explained what the government was doing on each. The government's aim remained for the country to have a surplus by 2010 and for the tax burden to be reduced. Gozo would also benefit as a region.

Mr Azzopardi remained in possession.