Updated - Parliamentary Secretary Mercieca only person to get waiver - PM

Parliamentary Secretary Franco Mercieca is the only member of the Cabinet who has been given special permission to continue exercising his profession, despite the provisions of the Code of Ethics, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning. Speaking to the press after a visit to St Aloysius' College, Dr Muscat said his Government believed in "common sense" and he saw nothing wrong with allowing Mr Mercieca to continue working in the interests of patients. Mr Mercieca, an ophthalmic surgeon, has been allowed to continue to perform operations. "Franco Mercieca has specialisations that few people in our country have and I felt he should be given permission to carry out some limited work so that patients do not suffer... At least until there are enough people specialised in this area," Dr Muscat said, stressing that Mr Mercieca was not a lawyer or an architect of which there is a large number. Asked whether the code of ethics was not important to him, Dr Muscat pointed out that in his first Cabinet meeting, he called for the code to be updated for today's needs. The Times reported this morning that Parliamentary Secretary Mercieca has been granted “a limited waiver” by the Prime...