Speaker turns down Opposition’s request for urgent coronavirus debate in Parliament

A request by the Nationalist Party leader to suspend Parliament’s normal agenda to discuss the situation surrounding the coronavirus has been turned down.

Adrian Delia invoked House Standing Order 13 on Thursday to ask for the House’s scheduled orders of the day to be adjourned and for an urgent debate on Covid-19 to be held instead.

Parliament was scheduled to debate a motion filed by PN MP Chris Said concernig he setting up of a Gozo parliamentary committee.

Standing Order 13 allows for the suspension of normal business to discuss a matter of urgent and national importance.

Delia said that the country’s limited resources made it all the more important that the government and Opposition worked together to overcome the challenges caused by the virus.

He lamented that the government had not accepted the Opposition’s suggestion for working together on the matter.

Said said he had no issue with his motion not being discussed today in light of the importance of the Covid-19 issue at hand.

Health Minister Chris Fearne, however, argued that while the coronavirus was an urgent matter, its urgency was not immediate on a temporal level in terms of needing to necessarily undertake a debate about it today.

Fearne said that he had also been updating PN MP and shadow health minister Stephen Spiteri on developments regarding Covid-19.

After suspending the sitting for 45 minutes to deliberate on the matter, Speaker Anglu Farrugia turned down Delia’s request for an urgent debate. He said that while the coronavirus was of national importance and also urgent, its urgency was not such that it had to necessarily be discussed right away. He also noted that ministerial statements had been made about the situation surrounding the virus, and various Parliamentary Questions had also discussed it over today's and previous sessions.

The House therefore proceeded to debating Said's motion, as per the normal agenda.