Speaker Michael Frendo yesterday told Labour MP Evarist Bartolo in Parliament that correspondence between the National Audit Office and the Ministry of Health over the past five years was “confidential”. But he conveyed the Auditor-General’s invitation to Mr Bartolo to visit the NAO in person to peruse the correspondence confidentially.

Dr Frendo was answering a request by Mr Bartolo for a detailed account of any type of correspondence between the NAO and the administration of Mount Carmel Hospital or the Health Division, or any other ministry responsible for the hospital, from January 2008 to date.

Mr Bartolo had also asked if during that period the NAO had made any recommendations on various topics concerning the hospital, and if the Speaker could lay on the Table of the House such recommendations, both those made public and others that had never been in the public domain.