Minister Austin Gatt had been “typically hysterical and incorrect” in his reaction to the satisfaction expressed by the Labour Party at the intention to set up an IT faculty at the university and implement a skills gap analysis, as had been suggested by the MLP, said the party’s spokesman for foreign affairs and IT Leo Brincat, and the party’s spokesman for education and national culture Carmelo Abela.

Dr Gatt, they added, had been overbearing when speaking about the Labour Party’s proposal, which was now being implemented, and incorrect to say that a skills gap analysis had been commissioned before the Labour Party made the proposal.

The minister himself had confirmed he was wrong, the spokesmen said, when he told a television interviewer that the government was not yet in a position to make such an analysis because it was difficult for it to quantify how many jobs would be created.