Prime Minister Joseph Muscat this evening said his government will not increase the retirement age or the national insurance contribution.

He was visiting the Gharghur Labour Party club as part of the electoral campaign for the upcoming local council elections. The club was crowded and people are waiting outside on the pavement and the road.

Dr Muscat said he was surprised at the turnout, expressing hope that on April 11, people will be showing support to the Labour movement and party.These mid term elections were the most challenging, he said.

"We need to work to get a majority, as small as it is," he said, adding that the road was uphill.

"These two years were not perfect but they saw very big social and economic changes," Dr Muscat said. This week he added, he had started visiting places related to the current government's work, such as childcare centres.

To send children to child care centres it used to cost €6,000 every year - half of many women's salary, discouraging families from going to work.

These services were now being provided for free for full time workers, and this was one of the big social economic reforms that would go down in history, he said, adding this could be compared to similar events like the introduction of pensions, minimum wage and maternity leave.

Free childcare centre services had not been introduced as a standalone, but as part of a plan to get more women out to work because there were more jobs available.

There were women who used to worked without registering and therefore without any benefits, who had been motivated to move from the black to the legitimate economy.

"We want to solve the problem of pensions through children," he said.

"The current pension is not enough. In the past grandparents used to hand out pocket money to their grandchildren, but now the elderly they have to be helped out financially by their own children. That means there is something wrong and we will solve it by getting more people to work."

"We will not increase the retirement age. This would be the easy way out. We will not increase national insurance contribution (bolla)," he said, insisting the solution was to increase the number of employed people.

He also referred to his visit yesterday to the Maltapost offices in Marsa where he met young people benefitting through the Youth Guarantee Scheme, through which unemployment had been slashed by a third.

He urged voters to give "another sign" and as small a majority it is, he insisted,  vote for all Labour candidates.