general manager of the Bermuda Housing Corporation deserve close scrutiny.

Whether the allegation by the United Bermuda Party is correct or not, what is certain is that Mr. Dill, who is also chairman of the Bermuda Hospitals Board and Bermuda Small Business Development Corporation chairman, is certainly a very busy man.

Shadow Health, Social Services and Housing Minister Cole Simons has questioned whether Mr. Dill will have the time to devote his energies to all three positions, given the critical nature of housing, small business development and health care.

Mr. Simons is right to raise the question. While Mr. Dill is a chairman, and not an executive, of the hospitals and the SBDC, both positions require a good deal of time and effort to be done well.

And because the hospitals are without a chief executive, this also means that Mr. Dill has had to spend a vast amount of time there as well, to the point where he has his own office at King Edward.

That Mr. Dill is now expected to carry out Government's policies on housing -- the major social issue of the day -- as well, makes one wonder when he will find time to sleep, let alone do a good job.

Accusations of cronyism may be going too far, although Mr. Dill certainly does not appear to have any direct experience in housing, although he has wide experience in finance.

But the public should ask if the Progressive Labour Party's pool of talent is so thin that there is no-one available to take some of the burden off Mr.

Dill's shoulders? Questions also need to be asked on whether Mr. Dill should be acting as a policymaker on the Hospitals Board and the SBDC while he is acting in an executive capacity in the Housing Corporation. While the Housing Corporation is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation (quango) and not part of the Civil Service, it remains dependent on Government funding to function.

When Mr. Dill goes to Government for his budget, which hat will he be wearing -- the one which pays his salary or the ones where he receives a stipend for appearing at meetings? DELTA'S BOOST EDT Delta's boost The announcement that Delta Airlines will add a second flight to the Island from Atlanta is the first good news that the tourism industry has had in some time.

The additional flight, which will come to the Island in the late afternoon and return to Atlanta the next morning, should enable Bermuda to exploit the increasingly wealthy Southeastern region of the US at the same time that it provides convenient connections for flights from the West Coast.

Providing more "lift'' to Bermuda is a crucial element in reviving tourism, but it is far from the whole answer.

Without lower airfares and upgraded hotel facilities provided at reasonable prices, visitors -- regardless of where they come from -- will still shun Bermuda for cheaper and/or more exotic vacation destinations.

Nonetheless, this is a good first step and Tourism Minister David Allen and his Tourism Ministry team deserve credit for having seen this effort through to completion. He also deserves praise for giving credit and acknowledging that this has been a long term goal of tourism.

The fact that Delta has confidence in Bermuda as a destination also should be noted; when so little seems to be going right in tourism in terms of bookings, it is good that one of the Island's oldest partners still has faith in Bermuda.