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The Home Affairs Ministry said this evening that 11 dogs are being used at the prisons, of which six springers and a labrador are used exclusively to detect drugs.
The ministry was replying to remarks by Labour’s home affairs spokesman, Michael Falzon, who said that despite the drugs problem at the prisons, the authorities did not have a single sniffer dog there.
The ministry said Dr Falzon was obviously misinformed about the situation at the prisons.
The dogs, it said, were being used effectively to detect attempts by people to take drugs into the prisons, including four who were caught in the past month alone.
Speaking at a press conference today, Dr Falzon said the prison was in a state of "chaos as usual".
He said prisoners were still waiting for the introduction of parole and no structures were in place yet. Meanwhile, prisoners with a known history of drug abuse were being given free rein at the prison once more.
Dr Falzon, who gave a press conference in response to the one given by Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici yesterday, said the drug problem had 'exploded' once again. When asked to provide evidence for his claim, he refused to elaborate.
"Wait till Wednesday," he told journalists, referring to the parliamentary debate regarding Dr Mifsud Bonnici's handling of the home affairs and justice ministry.
Dr Falzon used the same phrase when he was asked to confirm that the Opposition would change the motion about Dr Mifsud Bonnici to ask for his resignation, as had been promised. (Dr Mifsud Bonnici yesterday seemed sceptical that this amendment would actually be made.)
Asked how he thought Dr Mifsud Bonnici would be remembered, Dr Falzon refused to comment, saying only that he was a "very nice man".
Dr Falzon began his press conference by criticising Dr Mifsud Bonnici's choice of venue for yesterday's press conference, the disused Ħal Ferħ holiday complex.
He said this was a "failure" of the government because a tourist resort had become so decrepit that it was used for a simulation exercise of an earthquake emergency.
When journalists told him the site had been bought by Island Hotels to be turned into a luxury complex, he said the least the government could have done was ensure a boundary wall was built around the site as it did with smaller developments.
On illegal immigration, Dr Falzon said the minister should have acknowledged the support given by the Opposition when it came to EU fora.
Dr Falzon said the "relatively large" current influx of migrants showed that despite the expectations of a change in Libya's leadership, the situation went back to "square one".
But it was important to be tough with politicians, not with the migrants.
He said the fact that the US took more migrants than EU countries for resettlement showed how ineffective the government had been in EU fora.
Referring to the police, he said the new cars bought for the mobile squad were long overdue because police cars were failing VRT tests. The fact that the cars would now finally, have air conditioners was just an electoral ploy.