From Ms Helena Dalli MP

How bizarre. I write an article in The Times and a week later, a minister replies to it in The Malta Independent on Sunday.

And this was not the only strange thing about Louis Deguara’s article in last week’s The Malta Independent on Sunday. I was quite confused by his offensive reference to my political duties. More and more, the Opposition is being hysterically attacked for doing its duty and saying what is wrong with the doings of this government. (And the best, they say, is still to come.) If Louis Deguara and his party wish to muzzle us like extreme right censors, let them declare this openly.

Another ambiguity surfaces when it comes to addressing the minister: I always doubt whether I should refer to Louis Deguara as Minister for Health, as there either seems to be two Ministers for Health – Louis Deguara and Tonio Fenech – or Deguara is the junior minister of Fenech, who has been entrusted with Mater Dei while Deguara is kept watching on the sidelines. Several times the Prime Minister has been asked why he removed a good chunk of duties from Deguara’s portfolio as (sort of former) minister for health. Lawrence Gonzi has never replied and many think that it is due to Deguara’s impotence as “full” minister for health. Indeed, when people speak of a possible cabinet reshuffle, Louis Deguara seems to be a likely candidate for demotion. However, in all his articles, Louis Deguara uses sweet, adoring language for Lawrence Gonzi. In return for these niceties, the Prime Minister has now told the minister that he’s “on notice”.

Then, Louis Deguara goes on to refer to me as “Joan of Arc”. I don’t think he meant it as a compliment. When used otherwise, this expression is employed to mean “masculine woman”. Louis Deguara blames me for attacking him personally when I did not do like him and suggest that he is a feminine man. Men who address women in this manner are either trying to give the impression of being pathetic machos or are reacting to their being badly treated by women. But of course I cannot be blamed for this.

When Louis Deguara attempts to explain why the Prime Minister ignored him when announcing a panicky, last minute national breast-screening programme, the whole embarrassing truth comes out. Indeed, the head of Malta’s Radiotherapy and Oncology Department denied knowing anything about the Prime Minister’s plans. That makes Louis Deguara’s boss, Lawrence Gonzi, a good spontaneous planner who dreams of a programme, tells no one about it and declares it in Parliament. Hypocrisy makes the PN attack others for what they themselves regularly practice “with excellence”.

Since Louis Deguara now has more free time as partial minister for health, he could perhaps go over the sequence of events and start by viewing a recording of the television programme of about a month ago on which he said specifically that we are not ready for a national breast-screening programme.

Then he should re-read the speech he delivered – four days before the budget was announced – in which he reiterated that we are not ready for a national breast-screening programme. After which, out comes the Prime Minister and announces a national breast-screening programme.

The next day the head of the Radiotherapy and Oncology Department declares that this national breast-screening programme cannot be implemented in the immediate future (2008 is a month-and-a-half away) and that he knows nothing about it. (Incidentally, this professor’s serious statement was not quoted on the PN’s news bulletins and never made the headlines in the PN’s newspapers). A week later, the Prime Minister mutters in Parliament something about a pilot project on breast-screening – a far cry from a national breast-screening programme as first announced in the budget speech and which is on record for anyone who bothers to check.

All this should be seen in the context that, in 10 years, this government has not even been capable of starting a breast-screening programme for women at high risk, a programme targeted at women in the 50 to 60 age group and not all women, as in a national programme.

Finally, if I were Louis Deguara, I would not mention much the craving for power. First he was divested of major health administration duties and now, while walking the plank to be reshuffled as (shadow) minister for health, he expresses the euphoria of having such a great Prime Minister. Perhaps this could save his neck in his political master’s eyes?

Helena Dalli

MLP spokesman for public function and women