M L Coleiro: No falling out with the PL

Labour MP Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca said this evening that she had no falling out with the Labour Party on the issue of the minister's raise.

Reacting in parliament  to a claim made on a Sunday newspaper, Ms Coleiro-Preca said MPs had been free to speak within the party and there was no falling out.

Similarly, she said, she could not understand how PN whip David Agius tried to involve her on matters which were somebody else's responsibility during the programme Realta' on One.

The ministerial raise, she said, was a major government gaffe and a scandal.

The government should have admitted it made mistakes in the way it raised ministers' pay, and kept its decision hidden.

This was not the time for such extraordinary increases, when the people were suffering and many could not make ends meet.

Ms Coleiro Preca said the government's actions had undermined the people's attitude to politicians, seeing them as a 'gang of thieves'.

Yet she, as a civil servant, had seen her progression stopped when she became an MP and the honoraria she received from parliament was spent almost totally on maintaining her political offices. One could hardly compare her situation with that of the ministers who were receiving a ministerial pay plus their honoraria.

However, she had no regrets over her own situation.

Ms Coleiro Preca regretted that the government had not taken up the Opposition suggestion for the setting up of a commission to decide on an adequate honoraria for MPs and the salary of ministers from the next legislature.

Concluding, Ms Coleiro-Preca said she had no falling-out with the leader of the opposition and would remain a labourite to the end.