Labour MP Rosianne Cutajar has been appointed as a board member of the Council for Children, according to an announcement published in the Government Gazette.

The Council, which falls under the ministerial remit of Minister for Social Policy and Children’s Rights Michael Falzon, is made up of seven people.

Commissioner for Children Antoinette Vassallo chairs the council, while the six members are Cutajar, Darlinka Barbara, Victor Bugeja, Svetlana Grech, Neil Portelli, and Dr. Patrick Zahra.

The announcement was published on 22 July and the appointments are valid for a period of one year.

The council’s aim is to assist the Commissioner for Children in her work.

Cutajar was re-elected to Parliament last March via a casual election. She served as a Parliamentary Secretary for Civil Rights and Reforms, but lost her Cabinet post after sustained pressure from the Opposition and NGOs after her close ties to alleged Daphne Caruana Galizia murder mastermind Yorgen Fenech were exposed.

Her relationship with Fenech prior to his arrest in 2019 had already been under the microscope, but she was later found to have breached parliamentary ethics by Standards Commissioner George Hyzler over her failure to declare a brokerage fee which she received from Fenech in connection with his purchase of a property in Mdina.

She had resigned pending the results of the probe, and her resignation from Cabinet was confirmed when the report was published in July 2021. 

She received a €28,000 termination benefit for her resignation, even though she remained an MP.  She was later appointed as chairperson of parliament’s Health Committee, boosting her parliamentary honoraria by €10,000 per year.

Cutajar was snubbed in Abela’s Cabinet after his re-election this year, and while she did not retain her position on parliament’s Health Committee, she is now the chairperson of Parliament’s Social Affairs Committee.