Correct procedures were followed last year during a photo-shoot at the Addolorata Cemetery, the Environmental Health Directorate said this afternoon.

The photo-shoot, shown on TVM during the programme Venere, had raised a storm of protest, sparked by a letter to The Times by Joseph Galea Debono. He said that he was shocked by the TVM programme which showed "tartly clad young women cavorting and posing on the parvis of the neo-Gothic style church at the top of the cemetery and in front of private interment chapels and beside family tombstones."

The directorate in its statement today said that the producers of the programme had followed established regulations in carrying out the photo-shoot.

An internal inquiry had established, however, that the regulations were open to wide interpretation.

"Steps have since been taken to change the regulations".

The directorate thanked the producers and photographer for their co-operation throughout the investigations.

In October, as the controversy raged, the directorate had said that it issued a permit for the photo-shoot only because the applicant had declared that he wanted to highlight the beautiful Gothic architecture of the cemetery. The photographer filed an application with the Burials Administration Unit to take photos at the Addolorata and the person in charge authorised the request.

The conditions, applicable in all cases, were that photographs should not in any way contain anything that may be deemed objectionable.