The Labour Party has described the PN representative behaviour in parliament on Thursday as “shameful” and “arrogant”.
Justice Minister Jonathan Attard and PL MP Randolph Debattista were reacting to the PN MP’s storming out of the House before a vote on the PN motion relating to the hospitals deal rescinded by a court of law was taken.
Attard said that “yesterday’s debate show-cased the government’s serious approach to dealing with this issue and confirms that Robert Abela is the only political force that can lead this country forward.”
“The courts never said the government was found guilty of fraud and the biggest confirmation that the PM didn’t concede an inch to Steward Healthcare and always looked out for what was in the national interest concerns the fact that the contractual obligations were always expected to be followed,” Attard said.
“Further, the PN stated that the people didn’t receive their money’s worth but the facts flatly contradict this picture, as there is a whole string of services that the people received, enumerated by Abela in parliament,” said Attard.
“In Gozo hospital, for instance, there were 65,000 patients cared for in the ER, 13,000 patients being treated for cancer, almost 2.5 million laboratory experiments, 70,000 interventions in the cardiology department and 4000 interventions in endoscopy, amongst other measures,” said Attard.
We’re saying all of this because the lies of the PN need to be contradicted with facts,” he said.
“The government, indeed, is not completely happy with Steward’s handling of the situation as Abela spoke about the need to push for its value for money as well as how he would request an auditor general inquiry to verify the quality of the services offered by Steward,” said Attard.
Attard ended by saying that “despite the arrogance of the PN, we will keep on fostering positive changes.”
Debattista said that “the attitude that we saw yesterday on behalf of the PN MPs was shameful towards the highest institutions of the land and towards the Maltese and Gozitan people.”
“They showed disrespect towards the institution the likes of which I have never before seen and that which wasn’t shown on cameras was much worse than what was shown,” said Debattista.
“What we saw was the arrogance of a party that believes that whatever they do is all correct and that which the other does is all wrong,” he continued.
“I appeal to all that in front of the provocation of the extremists, we need to stay calm and focused on working together as a country for the national interest.”
Debattista expressed solidarity “with the journalists of One who were attacked, ironically, by those who were attending a vigil in support of a murdered journalist.”