In spite of parliamentary reassurances that we were given last Monday that the black dust issue is a new phenomenon that needs probing deeper and that still needs to be subjected to scientific analysis overseas, very few recollect the fact that this issue has been featuring on certain localities' agenda for the best part of the last decade; so much so that then Minister for the Environment Francis Zammit Dimech had commissioned a study on the issue, paid some Lm6,600 to a British consultancy firm, promised to table the relevant study in Parliament by the fall of 2000 and even to implement an action plan to resolve the issue without any further undue delay. This is nothing but symptomatic of the hubris that is having the better of this administration.