I have seldom seen, no let me correct that statement, I have never seen such a large hammer used to crack a delicate egg. The old permanent residency scheme was abused by some applicants... true.

The terms and conditions were outdated, too low, and needed to be revised... true.

But was it necessary to create a new, very complicated, extraordinarily expensive, virtually prohibitive, set of new conditions, in order to stop a few individuals from taking advantage of our old foreign residency conditions.

Let us face it, the vast majority of applicants for residency in Malta, who came from countries outside the EU, were genuine applicants, who would be an asset to our country.

Shall we, using the same logic, now make it very expensive and difficult for foreign students to come to Malta to learn English, because a few have caused trouble in Paceville?

Was it sensible for the authorities to continue to allow new building developments specifically targeted at potential new foreign buyers, to sprout up all over our Islands, when they knew that they were about to unload this bombshell, that would and could, and no doubt will, upset the whole apple cart?

A few years back, when property was selling quite well to foreigners, due to extensive promotions abroad undertaken by local agents, the government of that day said this was too good a chance to miss and raised the stamp duty of foreigners to 17 per cent.

This was done of course without consultation with people in the industry, and the result was a complete and abrupt halt in all enquiries from foreigners wishing to purchase properties in Malta.

The government then backtracked, very soon after it became highly apparent that a property disaster was imminent, and the stamp duty reverted to five per cent.

This seems to be a trend.

Today, the local property industry first works its backside off promoting Malta as a safe, inexpensive and pleasant place in which foreigners and their families can come and live in peace. Then, when the market gets off its feet, quality developments are built, foreign residents, permanent and temporary come to Malta to see whether they would like to live here... bang... once again it is time to mess things up.

It is only fair to say that there was a need to revise the conditions of Permanent Residency Scheme, but revise, not destroy all the good work that was done over many years. Hard work, by the people who are the sharp end of the property industry. Hard work, to bring into Malta and Gozo potentially thousands of permanent tourists that would be of tremendous benefit to the economy of our country.

Now we have to get back to the drawing board.

Now we have to apologise to the many potential clients who were waiting and hoping to settle in Malta.

Now we have to see how we are going to sell the hundreds of properties that are currently on the market and those hundreds more that have new permits to build.

Many good things have been done, and many good decisions made, over the last few years by the authorities, but this one I am afraid is not one of them. In fact, this one surely ranks as one of the very worst. It is one of the worst in many ways, such as the length of time taken to bring out the new conditions, affording the business and the potential waiting customers little or no respect. And because of the lack of consultation or listening to the people who have been in the business for many, many years.

And one of the worst because of the extraordinarily difficult, expensive and complicated conditions that have been issued, which have now placed us at the very bottom of the countries that will attract new permanent residents from outside the EU. Our competitors must be amazed at their good fortune.

The property market has always been the motor of our economy. Mess around with it at our peril. And mess around with it we have.