For all the time it took, and the national attention it grabbed, and for all its result and the smiles and even hand waves by some of the protagonists, such as Austin Gatt and Prime Minister Gonzi, last Friday’s full-day debate in the House of Representatives was a disappointing one.

There was such a crowd of MPs who wanted to have their say that the Whips were forced to limit each one to just a few minutes. But from one side and from the other, all that the MPs could come up with was a litany of inanities.

This was not an issue one has to be ultra clever to understand, or have a special degree – it was a very much down to earth issue, the public transport reform. The least one would have expected was that the MPs were sure of what they were speaking about. Instead we had a collection of petty stories about this old lady who took the 71 bus and ended up somewhere in Żabbar instead of Birkirkara. And of course each MP was careful to factor in his constituency and to devote the last minutes allowed to him to speak in detail about the faults of the system in his district.

That’s as regards the Opposition MPs. None offered a holistic approach to the issue and an attempt at trying to analyse what went wrong. Some, including the party leader, just researched some unfortunate quotes and threw them back in Austin Gatt’s face.

The government MPs defended Gatt and his new system, although some admitted it had some faults. But none expressed what many, perhaps among them too, certainly among the public, have been saying all along – that the system required major surgery.

Many were waiting to see what Dr Gatt had to say for himself, and in this he disappointed. There was no apology, no humility (such as enjoined by the Prime Minister himself). It seemed Dr Gatt was pooh-poohing most of the criticism he heard and that with just a tweak here or there, the system could work.

Dr Gonzi, on his part, was purely defensive. He has taken to be thus in so many instances recently, that people have just stopped arguing with him.

Anyway, the debate was rendered somewhat of an academic exercise because, as it happened, the mass changeover in the system was to take place two days after the debate. If anything, the debate should have taken place some days after the changeover.

At the end, all the excitement boiled down to just one point – what will Franco (Debono) do?

We now all know how it went, and how yesterday’s debate on a motion of confidence went as well. We all know now that Dr Eddie Fenech Adami once again intervened: He called Dr Debono before the vote, and then he was quoted by The Sunday Times to condemn Dr Debono’s abstention.

The country, however, is not interested in this nor in so many voices declaring Dr Debono’s political life to be over.

It is interested in getting a public transport system that really works and that is still something to be seen after all these dizzying changes. The country needs some days, if not weeks, to absorb the changes and to allow people to decide whether Arriva has finally got it right.

Nor is the public really interested in this persecution of Dr Debono who had the guts to say what many people had been saying about the public transport reform even though he is an MP and sits on the government benches.

This paper said last week that Dr Debono should have made his point clear but then not voted for the Opposition motion nor abstained on it. Put under extreme pressure, he went ahead and abstained. His reasoning was not all that clear, but that may be because he was not coherent in his speech. But it is definitely not a capital offence for an MP to say the truth as he sees and feels it. There are other MPs on the government benches who in private are even more scathing but sat it out on Friday.

Dr Gonzi has now put the matter to a vote of confidence and that, it seems, is that. Or is it? A government that survives from one vote of confidence to the next is a government teetering on the brink. Certainly, Dr Gonzi’s bluster and Dr Gatt’s declaration of perpetual fidelity to the PN in the last minutes of his speech make rousing soundbites but they cannot hide there is deep dissatisfaction in the country with the way this issue has been handled and in the way Dr Gatt hijacks the government to back him up, mistakes and all.