Can we please stop this silliness about the Gozo tunnel? Nobody seriously believes it is going to happen and it usually only appears as a topic as a distraction when politicians don’t want to talk about more serious issues.

Instead, perhaps one of the parties could announce its plan to buy, say, three new (or reconditioned) seaworthy vessels and, perhaps – since we imagine there are scores of investors desperate to finance our inter-island communication system – they could be sold to the highest bidder.

This would mean either a rival company or a bigger and better Gozo Channel Company. Either would be good. (I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t an EU grant available, somewhere.) When there was far less traffic and far less cross-channel commuting, we used to run Gozo ferries to Sa Maison and to Grand Harbour.

We could have them again, reducing congestion and pollution on the south island. Even longer ago, with a tiny fleet, we had a Gozo-Sicily service. Malta has bought second-hand vessels from mainland Europe in the past. It could do that again. Or it could commissionnew ones.

Either option would be a fraction of the unknown and unimaginable cost of a tunnel. But this needs to be done now and then start planning to refurbish the current fleet so it can remain in service longer.

May I remind the pro-tunnel lobby, small but noisy though it may be, that, for as long as their politicians have been telling them that the tunnel was ‘feasible’, we learnt the other day that they had been looking at a geological map that missed out 50 metres, no less, of indigenous rock.