The Anti Poverty Alliance’s proposals to the Budget with regard to housing (rent/purchase) say there should be a “tax rebate scheme” and “subsidies” (‘Cap rent increases, says Anti-Poverty Alliance’, September 8). Basically, that the government should give all-round alleviating fiscal advantages.

Fiscal incentives have proven, internationally and locally, to be beneficial to the State and generally.

This proposal is diametrically opposed to John Consiglio’s particular leitmotif that the government should whip the landlords (irrespective of their situation) by having long-unutilised property confiscated or taxed.

The proposal is in line with one that I made (‘The stick at its worst’, August 9) in response to Consiglio’s statement that the government should confiscate long-unutilised property (‘Unused property’, July 28). I had irrefutably pointed out that such a measure was contrary to Malta’s fundamental Constitution.

In his subsequent letter (‘Unused property’, August 18), Consiglio stated (contradictorily) that the government had “consultants” who could advise it on “new measures” so that if these measures are “socially beneficial” they do not come a cropper on “constitutional grounds”, based on the maxim facta lex inventa fraus, the law having been made, fraud was invented. Thus, goading the government to circumvent the law and, by fraudulent means, act in breach of the Constitution.

None should want to flout the Constitution, less so of conjuring schemes to defraud the Constitution of its protective rights.

I do not propose to enter into further correspondence.

I concede defeat as to the quantity of repetitive letters that Consiglio churns out, promoting outdated, tried and proven to be, unsuccessful ideas (see ‘Property biscuit’, September 7). I do not concede defeat as to the quality and contents.

I do hope this difficult and complex housing problem, and the  wider anti-poverty one, are solved in a studied holistic and encompassing manner in the best interest of all.