Updated - Adds PL reply - An attack by the prime minister on a group of people who had associated themselves with the Nationalist Party was an attack on the right of association, the party said this evening.

In a statement, it said that the prime minister's electoral promise that everyone could work with Labour had become a fairy tale.  

Dr Muscat needed to be reminded that Maltese society existed in a democracy and freedom and this allowed people to associate themselves with the people of their choice, the party said.

The PN said it would not let anyone campaign against government workers simply because they did not politically agree with it.  

Speaking on One Radio this morning, Dr Muscat also noted that it had been revealed that a number of people in various financial institutions, had been leaking information to the Opposition even before the information was received by the government.

These people, he said, thought the government had not known what was going on. They had grown over-confident and been caught red handed.

The government would not accept situations where it was undermined by people interested only in partisan matters. These people, therefore, would have to assume their responsibilities, as would the opposition.

Dr Muscat was referring to a report in It-Torca which said that a number of people, which it described as 'spies' in key positions within financial institutions such as the MFSA, the Central Bank and the National Statistics Office, had been leaking information to Tonio Fenech while he was shadow minister for finance.

They reportedly also set up a google group called Finance Shadow Group. It was alleged that some e-mails were exchanged during office hours.

PL: ABUSE CANNOT BE TOLERATED

In a reaction to the PN statement, the Labour Party said it had kept its promise and these people had been retained in their sensitive posts, even though some were put there on the eve of the general election.

It was these people who had betrayed the trust shown to them when they involved themselves in a network of leakage of internal information in order to harm the people. 

The right of association was sacred, the PL said but abuse of one's strategic position went beyond this when its purpose was to harm the country. This could not be tolerated, in line, after all, with directives introduced by the PN government some years ago.