Pieces of paper impersonating €400 million cheques and €30 million euro bills emblazoned with the names and faces of Robert Abela, Joseph Muscat, Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and others rained down onto MPs in Parliament on Monday.

As crowds gathered for a protest organised by the Nationalist Party outside Parliament, there seemed to be an extension of the protest inside Parliament’s chambers as well, where a plenary sitting was ongoing.

As Speaker Anglu Farrugia – who had rejected a third motion by PN leader Bernard Grech for an urgent debate on a matter related to the hospitals inquiry just ten minutes prior – moved to adjourn the session, papers could be seen raining down into the House.

Whether the papers were thrown from Parliament’s Stranger’s Gallery or from the Opposition benches was not clear from the television feed.

Images of the papers showed that some were ‘cheques’ written out for €400 million – the amount the government has paid to Vitals Global Healthcare and Steward Health Care combined before the hospitals concession was annulled – and signed by several current and former government officials.

The signatories were listed as “Prime Corrupt Joseph Muscat”; “Prime Defender of Criminals Robert Abela”; “Minister for Frauds Konrad Mizzi”; “The Chief of Everything Keith Schembri”; “Minister for the Real Deal Chris Fearne”; “Minister of Criminals Chris Cardona”; “Minister for the Hungry for Money Edward Scicluna”; and “Minister for Debt Clyde Caruana.”

The ‘cheque’ was dated 12 May 2015 and read at the bottom: “This cheque is as fake as Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela’s promises.”  It also includes the Labour Party headquarters postcode – HMR 1717 – and the phone number +356 21249900, which is the phone number of the same Labour Party headquarters.

The other papers thrown into Parliament were €30 million ‘euro bills’ with the faces of Muscat, Abela, Mizzi, Fearne, Schembri, and Scicluna superimposed onto a picture of St Luke’s Hospital – one of the three hospitals in the concession.

It reads: “This bill for 30,000,000 is as fake as Robert Abela, Joseph Muscat, Chris Fearne, Keith Schembri, Konrad Mizzi, and Edward Scicluna.”

The plenary session continued largely as normal as the papers rained down on MPs, however PN Whip Robert Cutajar then registered a complaint with the Speaker, accusing PL backbencher Alex Muscat of filming inside Parliament with his phone.

Muscat could in fact be seen on Parliament TV’s feed raising his phone and pointing it towards the PN’s benches.

Cutajar called on the Speaker to take action against Muscat, which prompted the government’s Byron Camilleri to ask the Speaker to take action against those who had thrown the papers into the Chambers.