The Nationalist Party this morning criticised a proposal for children to be taken to school an hour earlier to mitigate the traffic problem.

Addressing a news conference, transport and education shadow ministers Marthese Portelli and Therese Comodini Cachia said that no child, parent or teacher should end up a victim of the Transport Minister’s incompetence.

Dr Commodini Cachia asked whether the proposal was part of the traffic road map Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and Transport Minister Joe Mizzi had mentioned before the election.

The proposal, she insisted, did not make sense, so much so that it was criticised by a number of entities including student and teacher organisations and the Chamber of Commerce.

Dr Portelli said the government had tried to ridicule a proposal made by Opposition leader Simon Busuttil when replying to the Budget speech 10 months ago, that the government should pay for the transport of church and independent schools. Now it was taking on the proposal and making it its own.

She appealed to the government to acknowledge that traffic was not a perception, to say whether it had really had a road map and if the decision for students to wake up an hour early was part of it and to seriously address the traffic problem.