The opposition is to move a parliamentary motion of no confidence in ministers Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi, Miriam Dalli and Silvio Schembri in the wake of the findings of the public inquiry into the construction site death of Jean Paul Sofia, Bernard Grech said on Monday.

The Opposition leader made the announcement at a news conference outside parliament. The Labour party later dismissed the motion as a "political gimmick".

Zrinzo Azzopardi was responsible for planning and the construction sector at the time of the incident in December 2022, while Dalli and Schembri were responsible for state agencies INDIS and Malta Enterprise.

The public inquiry had described how the construction site was not regulated at the time and that the state should bear responsbility for that. 

State agencies INDIS and Malta Enterprise were found to have committed serious shortcomings in the way they allocated the public site and approved the project in 2019.

The Opposition had last week demanded that the three ministers resign, attacking the government for trying to shift the blame onto officials who, Grech pointed out, the ministers had themselves appointed as persons of trust.

Parliament on Monday was in its third day of debate on the findings of the Sofia inquiry report, with the Opposition again insisting that political, and not just administrative responsibility, needed to be shouldered for the tragedy.

So far, four people have resigned - three members of the Malta Enterprise board who sat on a committee that approved the transfer of the government land and the chair of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority.

A fifth person, Kevin Camilleri, was sacked from his role as head of Malta Enterprise's micro-enterprise unit.

The PN has previously described prime minister Robert Abela as "acting like Pontius Pilate and washing his hands of responsibility."

Speaking to Times of Malta last week, Zrinzo Azzopardi and Schembri skirted around questions of their resignation, with both saying that the government is committed to implementing the recommendations made by the inquiry.

Grech said the decision to present a no-confidence motion followed a meeting held by the Nationalist Party parliamentary group. 

“These are the three ministers who are responsible for the entities linked to the failures identified by the inquiry,” Grech said. 

“It is not acceptable that no one takes any form of political responsibility after this ‘comedy of errors’ resulting in the death of a young man. How is it that only a few officials resigned after this inquiry? Who was responsible for these people? Which ministers? We know who, these are the ministers.”

He also called out Prime Minister Robert Abela, who he said, continues to “gamble with people’s lives”.  Grech observed that if it were up to Abela, the public inquiry would not have happened in the first place. 

“Had Abela got his way, construction workers and people living next to construction sites would still be exposed to the serious failings noted by the public inquiry,” he said. 

He added there were still many people who lived next to construction sites and lived in fear. There have been individuals who reported construction site failings, and nothing was done. 

In a reaction to Grech's announcement, the Labour Party said the PN was resorting to political gimmicks whereas the government viewed the outcome of the public inquiry as a tool to carry out further reforms in the construction sector. The reforms included measures that had also been suggested to the last PN government but were shelved.   

The PN last tabled a no-confidence motion in July against Energy Minister Miriam Dalli in the wake of long and widespread power cuts. However it was never debated in parliament. 

It is up to the government to put a motion on parliament's agenda unless the opposition moves the motion on a day which is allocated to opposition business in parliament, which usually happens once every few months. 

The last time a vote of no confidence motion was actually held was in May 2016 when parliament voted against a no confidence motion on then-minister without portoflio Konrad Mizzi.