‘Actors’ in PM’s €8,400 video are furniture firm scions who did not benefit from tax exemption

The couple who featured in the much-maligned New Year’s address by the Prime Minister, probably did not benefit from the government’s tax-exemption scheme for first-time home buyers because they purchased their property in 2008, the Times reported.

The Agius couple, employed to give lip service to the government’s first-time buyers’ scheme and free childcare, were outed by the press as scions of the Construct Furniture firm.

Both Fernando and Lorella Agius work as interior designers at Construct Furniture, whose manufacturing firm expanded with a Libyan presence back in 2004.

The couple, who tell the PM in the €8,400 video that they are expecting a baby – ostensibly heartened by the disposable income left in their pockets in the past year – were shown to have bought their terraced house in Wilga Street, Luqa, back in 2008.

But the scheme for first-time buyers only applies to couples who signed a promise of sale agreement from 2014.

Photos of their wedding published by Net News revealed they are close friends of Labour Party MPs and activists. Their house contract was signed by the notary Malcolm Mangion, son of Labour MP Charles Mangion.

Their ‘acting’ role was given short shrift by revelations that the couple may have not benefited from the tax exemption, and further added embarrassment to the video that was largely blasted as a propaganda effort.