Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, MLP spokesperson for social solidarity, and Silvio Parnis, spokesperson on the elderly, said in a statement that while the government boasted of improvements in facilities at St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly, basic facilities were failing and no action was being taken about them.

They said the telephone system in Halls Five and Six for women had not been working for months and the elderly there could not use the telephone, nor could their relatives contact them.

Reports had been made about this but no action had been taken, the spokespersons said.