The government is again ignoring the people's transport needs as whole villages have been left without a direct route to Mater Dei Hospital, Labour spokesman Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca said.

In a statement, Mrs Coleiro-Preca said that the government did not seem to care that it had reduced accessibility and as a consequence there were elderly and other people who were having to pay for private transport so as not to miss their important appointments at Mater Dei's Outpatients Department, appointments which they would have waited for for a long time.

The government should be ashamed that while it boasted that it had put Malta in the EU it was denying the Maltese a service the EU considered to be basic and essential in peoples socio-economic development.

This was hypocrisy, Mrs Coleiro-Preca said.