Louis Cilia writes:

The tragic death of Paul Attard was shocking news.

I have known Paul for a number of years but we became very close since when we were permanent secretaries together in different ministries during the same years of public service. Paul was an intelligent, honest and cultured person who dedicated most of his life to the good of others.

His area of specialisation was education. He went through all the ranks of the Education Department, starting as teacher at Żejtun Primary School in the late 1950s and ending as the head of the Education Ministry as its permanent secretary in the early 2000s.

Paul was deeply interested in education and spearheaded a number of reforms during the time he was in charge of the sector. He was trusted by his superiors who were always keen to seek his wise and experienced advice when embarking on some new venture or reform in the field of education. The same can be said of those who worked under him who would invariably find in him a sympathetic ear with a ready smile, always there to help them in their endeavours and problems.

Paul has, during his retirement, been working on a monumental undertaking on the development of education in Malta during the last 50 years or so, which, hopefully, will see the light of the day as a published book in the coming months. It is a great pity that, through his sudden and unexpected death, he has been deprived of seeing his work published. Always a keen and receptive listener to various opinions, he would have been delighted with the resulting debate that his book would undoubtedly raise.

From an early age, Paul was always active in good causes. He was a man of many talents and parts but, most of all, an energetic doer. For many years, he was a broadcaster of religious programmes on television and radio, general secretary of the Cana Movement and editor of the publication Familja Kana.

He was involved in the first initiatives on programmes for drug addicts, chairman of the Public Service Commission and, lately, chairman of the St John’s Cathedral Foundation where he was instrumental in seeing through a number of important initiatives relating to restoration works, which have seen the transformation of formerly damaged or degraded parts of the cathedral to their former pristine eminence.

During his retirement, Paul had continued to help others in good causes doing everything freely and without making too much fuss of it, the whole effort being, as always, his style of doing things unobtrusively.

Most of all, I miss Paul as a dear friend who will be irreplaceable. All the nice dreams of passing our old age together in quiet pursuits have evaporated with the reality of life, a sudden, tragic accident which has taken him away from us, his family, his close friends. Hopefully, he has not suffered much.

May he rest in peace and bring consolation to all those dearest to him.