The dockyard workers, free schooling, and Mother Teresa

Sammy Meilaq, the militant former chairman of the Drydocks Council, has just retired after reaching pensionable age.

He was a central figure in the shaping of events at the dockyard over the past three decades and continues to stoutly defends his actions.

Mr Meilaq tells Kurt Sansone in an interview that militant dockyard workers were warriors defending workers' rights.

He blames the governemnt for the collapse of the dockyard, saying it had deviated from the Appledore report for restructuring based on ship repair and diversification. He agrees that the dockyard could not continue to receive subsidies for ever, but says subsidies were going to ship owners, not the workers.

Mr Meilaq also raises questions on the suitability of Palumbo to take over the dockyard. Palumbo, he says, is a small operation. It is like a mechanic who used to work on light cars and later bought a garage to fix large trucks.

Mr Meilaq justifies the opposition of shipyard workers to the Church's stance against free schooling in the early 1980s - a situation which saw dockyard workers ransacking the Curia during a demonstration -and insists the workers were on the side of Christianity more than the Curia.

He makes a distinction between the 'content' of the demonstration' and the 'form'.

"The demonstration was no different to what Mother Teresa did in Calcutta when she opposed the Curia and decided to teach the poor for free. She left the convent in protest and went to teach poor children in the street. The Cardinal even threatened her with excommunication.

He admits, however that it was wrong that the demonstration ended in violence.

The full text of the interview can be seen in The Sunday Times.