Updated 5.42pm Apology email tabled in parliament

Nationalist MP Rebekah Borg has received an apology from Tourism Minister Clayton Bartolo for saying he detested her in parliament.

The comment was made last week as Borg rose to ask the minister a parliamentary question.  

In a video Borg shared on social media, Bartolo can be heard telling Social Housing Minister Roderick Galdes sitting next to him "oh god, I detest this one with a passion man" (ilalla, din, din, jien ma naħmilhiex saħta man). It appeared that the minister did not realise that his microphone was switched on. 

Bartolo had just finished answering a parliamentary question by Borg and the PN MP indicated she wanted to ask a supplementary question.

On Facebook, Borg said: "You forgot to switch off the microphone Minister Clayton Bartolo. Is this acceptable behaviour from a minister, in parliament, when all I did was ask a question?" 

Bartolo hasn't commented on the issue but Borg said the minister had apologised to her in an email on Monday. 

In the email, Bartolo said he wanted to "apologise to you personally for a comment that was not appropriate within the spirit of the parliamentary sitting".

Borg said that while she was not impressed by the comment, especially as she was only doing her job, she accepted the apology.

"I just hope I will be left to do my job without receiving snide comments like this, which only got caught because the mic was left on," Borg said. 

She asked the minister for his apology in parliament so that it is registered by the House.

"I hope that in the future, no such remarks are made about MPs, who are, at the end of the day, carrying out their duty," she said.

Reacting, Bartolo said: "I have no problem with apologising. I'm also tabling the email that was sent  [on Monday morning] before either side of the House contacted the other."