Finance Minister Edward Scicluna has insisted on his regular video blog that social services must be temporary, until beneficiaries can stand on their own feet.

He explained that many governments were finding it difficult to sustain social benefits.

What was important, he said was that – apart from education and health – beneficiaries did not remain dependant on benefits.

The problem was, he said, was that recipients of social benefits often became dependant on them. Governments often did not make it easier for such people to fend for themselves and come off benefits. The state, therefore needed to change its systems in a way that would encourage people to come off benefits, and reward them for doing so.

This reform, he said, was slowly also being introduced in Malta because it was not right that while most people worked hard and paid their taxes, others remained dependant on social benefits or, worse still, claimed them abusively.

Taxpayers needed to be sure that their taxes were going for those who were really in need, and dependants should realise that their benefits were temporary and at the first opportunity they should go out to work.