Parliament building on Opera House site

Fr Peter Serracino Inglott (The Sunday Times, November 9) paid me a great compliment when he called me "one of Valletta's greatest benefactors", but then took me to task for proposing that the Opera House area should be transformed into a Parliament building.

I truly appreciate what Fr Peter has done for the arts and culture and I fully understand his line of thinking that Valletta can only be revived in the evenings through cultural activities; on the other hand, there is simply nowhere else to put our Parliament.

My argument since 1987 has always been that the Palace is not the place for Parliament. This should be our prime heritage and tourist site together with St John's Co-Cathedral. There is no space for Parliament to expand its workings through committees and to give decent space to Ministers and MPs.

I have argued on countless occasions that there were only two possibilities for a Parliament House: the Opera House site or the Mediterranean Conference Centre. The latter is finally functioning well both as a centre for cultural activity and for conferences.

It does not make sense to close down the MCC and turn it into a Parliament building though maybe we should have done this a long time ago. That leaves the Opera House site.

I will not argue as to what type of building it should be but I have always stated that this country is mad to have kicked out Renzo Piano and Richard England's "approved and not approved" proposal for an Arts Centre.

It should be recalled that it was the Valletta Rehabilitation Project that led the Piano proposals (which admittedly needed altering but should never have been filed away) and did a brief and competition for the Arts Centre.

I may not have agreed with the proposal for the Opera House area but I still worked very hard to get this done.

The Freedom Square area, properly designed, which would require a rethink, could include some cultural activity.

To me Fort St Elmo, with its architectural complexity and space, is the best place for a cultural centre. I do not see any alternative. There is much to be said for this project and already a lot of preparatory work has been done.

Fr Peter wrote on other issues which deserve to be discussed. May I, like him, suggest the setting up of some kind of urban development company. Even on this point we have prepared documents and reports based on a public-private partnership. One of the proposals was the result of an EU research project called Entrust.

The debate continues. We are desperate for some decisions, however, even on a long-term basis, hoping that everyone who can contribute with ideas is pulled in.