While the government boasted about improvements at the St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly, many of the residents were regularly being denied of basic facilities, said Marie Louise Coleiro Preca, MLP spokesperson for the elderly.

She said that over the last days, when the weather had become uncomfortably hot, there were elderly residents in particular wards who did not have air conditioning because the system needed repairs.

The government should be ashamed of this, she said, seeing that residents in old people’s homes run by the government paid 80 per cent of their pension. Air conditioning in such weather was not a luxury, she said. It was a basic need, especially where the elderly were concerned.