Updated | ‘I do not have a Blue Badge and never used my wife’s’ – Luciano Busuttil

Labour MP Luciano Busuttil has insisted that he never held a Blue Badge – which allows people with disabilities to park in reserved spaces – or used that of his wife after police were called in to investigate potential abuse.

National Disability Commission (KNPD) chairperson Oliver Scicluna told MaltaToday that the commission had referred the case to the police after receiving a number of complaints that Busuttil was using his wife’s Blue Badge.

He added that this is normal procedure: whenever the KNPD receives two complaints from two different people that a person is using somebody else’s Blue Badge, it always passes the case on to the police. Contrary to claims by the Nationalist Party, no inquiry was launched into the case.

Neither is the KNPD contesting whether the MP’s wife Dorothy Busuttil Fitzpatrick has a right to her Blue Badge, which was given to her in 2013 following a traffic accident.

“The KNPD doesn’t get into such issues at all. [Busuttil Fitzpatrick] was given her Blue Badge in 2013 after a medical assessment, and this was renewed in 2015 after a doctor ruled that she was still entitled to it,” Scicluna said.

He vehemently denied that political pressure in any way led to Busuttil Fitzpatrick being awarded a Blue Badge.

“Our doctors are not handpicked, but appointed following an Expression of Interest, and all our doctors have been working with us since before 2013.”

He added that the KNPD will soon impose a three-layer system, requiring Blue Badge applicants to be assessed by a doctor, a physiotherapist and an occupational therapist. As it stands, an applicant only needs to be green-lighted one of those three professionals before being granted a Blue Badge.

The Nationalist Party had earlier called on Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to take action against Busuttil, for what the party described as a “bare-faced abuse of power”.

“This confirmation that Busuttil owns a Blue Badge that he has no right to is not only an insult to disabled people, but to every driver who wastes time searching for parking,” Opposition MP Robert Cutajar said in a statement. “It is unacceptable for anyone to abuse of Blue Badges, let alone for politicians, whose behaviour is supposed to be exemplary. The only example that Luciano Busuttil is giving is that of bare-faced abuse of power.

“In a normal country, Busuttil would have already offered his resignation to the Prime Minister. Obviously, seeing as Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri didn’t resign after they were implicated in the Panama Papers, Luciano Busuttil certainly won’t resign.”

However, in a statement issued through the Labour Party’s media channels, Busuttil declared that the Blue Badge in question was given to his wife four years ago after she was involved in a car crash that “left her disabled”.

“This Blue Badge was valid for two years. When the two years were up, her Blue Badge was renewed following a medical assessment by the KNPD’s own doctor. Although her Blue Badge is still valid, my wife will, out of her own free will, request a re-assessment.”

The MP added that he is ready to cooperate with the authorities on any investigation that could be launched into the issue.
Dorothy Busuttil Fitzpatrick uploaded a Facebook post earlier this week, insisting that she was entitled to a Blue Badge.

“Yes, I do wear high heels…and very high ones too…most of the time. Contrary to the fact that I rarely, not to say never, wear sneakers because I can’t. So yes, I park in parking spaces reserved for blue badge holders if they are available because I am one. The same way that I refrained from parking within these spaces while my card was being processed for renewal…like everyone else’s.

Repeated attempts by MaltaToday to contact Luciano Busuttil failed. However, the Labour MP – who has a state funded full-time driver for his part-time position as Sports Council chairman – uploaded a Facebook post earlier today, ostensibly referring to this latest controversy.

“The more dangerous a footballer is, the more likely he is to get kicked by his opponents. The same applies in politics…”