I refer to the article entitled Labour's Motion Illogical - Foundation President (January 26).

This article includes the following: "In the absence of a clear indication of the government priorities for the use of EU funds, the presence of Richard Cachia Caruana - the government-nominated representative on the St John's Co-Cathedral Foundation, which is behind the proposed project - gives rise to conflict of interest, the PL argues. In a statement released by the PN on Saturday, the party did not react to this point". This statement is completely untrue.

The House of Representative's motion presented by the Opposition Leader states that Mr Cachia Caruana's alleged conflict of interest arises "in the light of the absence of clear indications of the government's priorities for the use of EU funds".

The press release issued by the PN on Saturday, January 24, starts by tackling this very issue: "The first point raised by the Leader of the Opposition is fallacious. It appears that the Leader of the Labour Party is the only person who doesn't know that the government published the country's priorities for the use of EU funds through the National Strategic Reference Framework in December 2006 (two years ago), and through two Operational Programmes published in June 2007 (a year and a half ago).

It also appears that Dr Muscat has not noticed that the European Union will not approve the allocation of funds unless these priorities have already been established. The National Strategic Reference Framework and the Operational Programmes are public and can be found on the government's website."

The PL's motion is therefore based on a false premise as is the allegation that Mr Cachia Caruana has a conflict of interest in this matter.