The Acting Speaker of the House, Ċensu Galea, warned today that he may have to resort to temporarily evicting MPs from the House, a measure not used for some 20 years, if disorder in the House continued.

He issued his warning after the House was briefly suspended for the second time in as many days because of disorder.

The latest incident occurred as Nationalist MP David Agius complained that somebody had taken a picture of MP Beppe Fenech Adami from the benches when this was not allowed. The picture was uploaded on Glenn Bedingfield's blog and it was clear that it was not taken off Parliament TV, Mr Agius said.

Mr Galea, while saying he would investigate, added that if MPs did not expect people to take pictures of them from the Strangers' Gallery, they should not take pictures themselves. 

Earlier, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici intervened briefly to ask Opposition leader Simon Busuttil what action he would take over criticism of Jason Azzopardi made in two reports by the Auditor-General, published two days ago.

Dr Busuttil said Beppe Fenech Adami had replied eloquently yesterday to a similar question, and, amid interruptions, he added that Dr Bonnici had now proved to not only have a doctorate in law but also a doctorate in hypocrisy.

Health Minister Chris Fearne then rose to table inquiry reports he had spoken about yesterday about the use of expired Tamiflu medicine and the election of the Nurses Council. As he started to comment on them, Mr Galea insisted no comments could be made at that stage.

Mr Fearne continued, and amid interruptions said he would accept any Opposition challenges on transparency. Amid more interruptions, the sitting was suspended.

It resumed after a few minutes when Mr Fearne tabled the two reports and technical reports related to the investigation on the Nurses Council election.

Dr Fenech Adami said there were serious allegations with respect to the Nurses Council election which were not addressed by the inquiry, including how there were two sets of ballot papers. Closing examination showed that one type contained two dots – a printing fault – and that hundreds of them were sent in one type of envelope. The importer of the envelopes has close ties to the OPM.

On the use of expired Tamiflu, Dr Fenech Adami said this was tantamount to an admission of failure on the part of the government, which found enough funds for other purposes, but not this. It was only after the medicine was used that tests were made to test its efficiency.

Other speakers were Opposition members Claudette Buttigieg, Peter Micallef, Jason Azzopardi, Karl Gouder, Claudio Grech and Paula Mifsud Bonnici.

Government Whip Godfrey Farrugia pointed out that because Tamiflu was expensive, it was common to ask the manufacturer to extend the expiry date after appropriate tests. This was also the practice used by the PN administration. Hospital chemists always worked in a responsible manner.

Winding up, Mr Fearne said that in 2009, when there was the worldwide flu scare, many government had amassed large consignments of Tamiflu. The PN government had bought €700,000-worth of stock. Because, worldwide, big stocks were not used, many government had asked the manufacturers to extend the expiry date and they are not considering asking for a further extension.

The minister insisted no other expired medicines were administered.

The minister said he would not take lessons from Dr Fenech Adami, who did not have the decency to declared his conflict of interest since one of the nurses that filed the court protest over the council election was his sister, Dr Maria Cassar.

Interjecting Dr Fenech Adami admitted Dr Cassar was his sister and added that was why the election was rigged so that she would not be elected.

Parliament later rose for the Christmas recess and meets again on January 9.