Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami on Tuesday admitted he had helped individuals attain employment, something, he claimed, was part of the role of MPs.

However, he insisted he had not “pushed” for particular individuals to attain specific jobs and categorically denied having helped any person find employment with the government or its entities “when they did not have a right to the job”.

Dr Fenech Adami was replying to questions by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee concerning communications between himself and various WasteServ and government officials prior to the 2013 election.

Asked about a 2010 email sent from his personal email address to the head of the Rural Affairs Ministry to recommend a particular individual, Dr Fenech Adami said that he had had no particular recollection of the individual in question until the same individual contacted him shortly after the leak of the emails to inform him she had not been given the job for which he had recommended her. She said she had not even been summoned to an interview for the position.

Dr Fenech Adami was also asked about another email sent during the same period, which concerned a worker who had already been shortlisted for a job with WasteServ but was on the verge of being rejected because he did not have his own means of transport. He did not know what had ultimately happened to this individual as he had not been contacted by him, he said.

Although he had helped individuals attain employment as a sitting MP - which, he claimed, was part of the role of MPs - he had not “pushed” for particular individuals to attain specific jobs. He categorically denied having helped any person to find employment with the government or its entities “when they did not have a right to the job”.

Government MP Robert Abela questioned whether the recommendation of two persons in a three-day period in 2010 suggested intervention by the MP in other instances.

Without excluding that further emails had been sent or received by him with respect to engagement at WasteServ, he said that had any other emails existed, those who had leaked the ones currently being discussed by the Committee would have leaked them too.