Opposition deputy leader Charles Mangion yesterday reiterated opposition calls for an inquiry headed by a judge to investigate how 900 dockyard workers were selected for transfer to alternative jobs or early retirement.

If this was done in agreement with the GWU, the issue would be concluded and this sense of clarification and transparency would push the restructuring of the shipyards forward.

Dr Mangion was speaking at the end of the second reading debate on the Dockyard and Shipbuilding Yard (Restructuring) Act.

Dr Mangion said the country needed to make the best use of its skilled human resources. Offering them early retirement was certainly not the best way of doing things.

Dr Mangion also underlined the importance of the shipyards for Malta. It was true that the sector needed to be reformed but it also needed to be diversified to new activities such as the building and repair of yachts.

Dr Mangion said the collective agreement between the management and the GWU on the remaining shipyard workers was good in itself and protected the workers' interests. But there remained another collective agreement to be reached for those workers who refused early retirement and would be joining Industrial Projects Ltd.

The government should indicate how these workers were to be deployed so that the best use could be made of their skills.

Indeed, the government also needed to give a more detailed picture of its plans for the shipyards.

Dr Mangion said it was not right for dockyard workers to have become the government's punching bag, as if they were to blame for the crisis in their company when their situation was common to many other shipyards.

Indeed, the government had wasted three years of the reform process, during which the problems got worse. Surely the workers were not to blame for this? The Appledore Report was commissioned by the Labour government in 1998 yet this government only set up the shipyards task force in September 2001.

In calling for greater detail about the government's plans for the shipyards, Dr Mangion observed that when he had asked the government whether it would be possible for Malta Shipyards to borrow money from banks for capital investment purposes, the reply was that there were plans, but this was being discussed further.

The government had not yet decided how much it would charge the company for use of its assets. Such rental cost would, however, affect the costings of the new company and the unit cost of production.

Dr Mangion asked who was going to be responsible for marketing. What type of marketing was to be carried out? Would the government politically intervene to get work to the shipyards?

Near the end of his speech Dr Mangion noted that parliament had just enacted an industrial law making it obligatory for employers to consult workers in certain circumstances. But the shipyards were losing their worker director.

Jesmond Tanti, who was being transferred from the shipyards, had been nominated by the management for the Worker of the Year award and was recently appointed worker director for five years. Did the government not know what was happening?

Earlier, Joseph Abela (MLP) said the dockyard had given much to the country over the years, including skills training. It was also an important source of foreign currency.

Concrete progress to return the shipyards to viability only started being made after the Sant government took office in 1996.

Unfortunately after the PN government returned to office in 1998 an early retirement scheme was introduced and the dockyard lost some of its most talented people, thus making a bad situation worse. The process then stopped abruptly in all areas.

No new training was given to dockyard workers, debts continued to mount, and the only development was that US navy vehicles started being repaired at the 'yard, which was shameful given Malta's constitutional provisions on neutrality. The government had claimed ship repair on naval vessels would lead to brisk business for the yard. That had not happened.

The government was now saying it would absorb the 900 so called surplus dockyard workers. That would add to the overmanning of the civil service.

Of course, it was good that the workers would continue to receive their wages, but this was not the best use that could be made of their skills.

These workers had been stopped from working at the yard abruptly, even though some had been working there for 30 years or more. This was a situation which created tension. Surely such workers should have been given counselling.

Mr Abela said he seriously doubted that the government's plans would lead to financial viability for the shipyards. Abroad shipyards which could not depend on a home fleet ended up being closed or privatised. Was this the government's plan?

Mr Abela appealed to the government to do its utmost for the shipyards to become viable, saying genuine efforts would find the opposition's backing.

Silvio Parnis (MLP) said the opposition was fully behind shipyard workers. But who was supposed to get work for the shipyards? The workers? If the government was not capable of getting work for shipyard employees, who should be blamed, the workers or the government?

Mr Parnis said that when the Labour government had tried to do something for the shipyards it did not find the Nationalist opposition's support. Indeed, the workers had been incited against the government.

The Labour MP said that in considering early retirement, dockyard workers should consider that the country lacked opportunities and it would not be easy for them to find alternative employment.

Mr Parnis tabled a boiler suit in honour of shipbuilding workers including those who had lost their life at the place of work.

Chris Agius (MLP) (who spoke yesterday) said a lot had been done in the months when the Labour Party were in government as borne out by the commissioning of the Appledore Report, which the current government now quoted frequently.

That report, however, had never suggested transferring workers out of the shipyards, as the government was now doing. It had instead suggested the use of dockyard workers on alternative activities such as bus building, an activity which, if implemented, would have saved the country thousands of liri.

The plans the government had unveiled for the shipyards had not pleased anyone and it would appear that yet another golden opportunity for effective reform was being lost. Even the EU did not support the early retirement schemes that were being offered.

Josè Herrera (MLP) spoke on the historical importance of the shipyards and said the Labour Party, for which the dockyard workforce had become the backbone, had always done its best to help the industry.

The country, however, could not live on nostalgia. Both Labour and Nationalist administrations since the Mintoff government had faced problems in ways that were in keeping with their respective times.

Labour, particularly, had not been afraid of recourse to unwelcome measures to restructure the shipbuilding and shiprepair sector. The Appledore Report had been a step towards some of these measures.

On the other hand the Nationalists had slept on the report, leading to chronic lack of work and spiralling costs and debts. They had now been spurred into action through the measures currently under debate.

The sector's workers, especially those who had been turned away, had every right to be heard. There was a strong element of injustice in the way that some things had been done. What Labour was opposing was that the agreement reached with the GWU had been manipulated, he concluded.

Joe Mizzi (MLP) said that up to the last general elections yard workers had been urged to have faith in the Nationalists because the sector would be brought to its feet; no mention had ever been made of what was in store for them. The majority had voted on the basis of the promises made before the election.

The government which made so much of transparency should now abide by this principle, especially with regard to the rejected workers' assessments.

Turning to Dock No. 1, Mr Mizzi said he hoped that the re-development of the area would be in the best interests of Cottonera, and not just of speculators. This was precious land that belonged to the Maltese people, and the government should get the best out of it for the country.

The development plan for the south of Malta, with which the government professed to agree, laid down exactly what sort of development should take place in the area of Dock No. 1, he said.