In a rather surprising change of attitude towards all the allegations of abuse that have recently been made public, and with the Chief Minister himself accepting thalt there is a level of some public interest over this issue, the Government have done everything possible to distance themselves from the alleged going-on at the Social Services Agency preferring instead to place the responsibility of the answers they gave in Parliament yesterday, which were skimpy and incomplete, on the shoulders of the management of the Agency.

The Minister responsible, Jaime Netto, who had in a previous session of Parliament been despotic and even cynical in his replies and who had assured everyone that everything had been satisfactorily investigated, was much more cautious in his responses this time round, faced as he was with questions involving some of the specific allegations made. He decided to answer all the questions related to abuse together, thereby limiting the number of supplementary questions which are usually lost when questions are taken as a block instead of individually. Netto said that, as a rule, all complaints get investigated but could only confirm the investigation of one incident in 2002 in which a member of the staff was given a warning and reprimanded.

In answer to another question he denied that there ever was a "punishment room" at the Doctor Giraldi Home, something which was later qualified by the Chief Minister who said that it very much depended on what the person making the allegation understood a "punishment room" to be, in the widest definition possible.

Opposition Leader Joe Bossano quizzed the Government over whether records had been kept of all the supposed investigations that are now alleged to have taken place and whether these records were brought to the attention of the Board of the Agency. Netto was dumbfounded. He said he was not in a position to say, and added that he thought that the Board had not yet been set up when some of these acts of abuse are alleged to have taken place.

When asked by Bossano to say who had carried out the investigations Netto replied that he did not know the answer. It is here where the Chief Minister interjected to explain that the replies being given to Parliament had been prepared by the staff of the Agency and that if records did not exist some of the answers could well have been prepared from memory, but that he didn't know the answer either. He supposed records did exist but the answers had been drafted by the staff, not by the Minister, and the Government did not have more information.

Former Minister for Social Services Yvette del Agua then intervened in the proceedings to say that, at the time, she had asked about the "punishment room" allegation and had been told that no such room existed. This after Netto had said that the first he krieW of that particular allegation was when this last question was drafted. Who supplied that answer, Bossano asked Del Agua, was it the Chief Executive-Officer that has since gone and who is not even in Gibraltar? Del Agua said she was not 100% certain but she believed it was the missing CEO, adding that the answers now given had been prepared by the current Manager of the Doctor Giraidi Home.

This new exchange in Parliament still leaves a lot of questions unanswered, particularly since, despite the seriousness of some of the allegations, there is no certainty whatsoever that they have been the subject of a proper investigation and no records appear to exist to support the contention that some issues were indeed investigated. Why Netto should have referred all the Opposition questions to the Agency in order for them to prepare replies, in itself, tells a story given that he had previously assured Parliament that all allegations had been properly investigated. If he was so sure of that, why ask the Agency for explanations now.

What is absolutely clear is that there is a shift in the position of the Government, one where- they attempt to wash there hands of the whole affair and leave the management and staff of the Agency completely exposed, despite the fact that the action of some of the members of staff are alleged to have been directed by Government Ministers.