A new Labour government will do its utmost to solve the pensions problem by encouraging more human resources to take up employment, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Speaking in Qormi he said that while anyone who could work did so in other countries, Malta had the second worst employment rate in the EU.

Malta's biggest unutilised resource was women, most of whom still did not have a job.

A new Labour government would ensure there is a structure which would encourage women to work.

The present government, he said, was not encouraging flexible work practise and affordable childcare facilities.

And had it not been for grandparents, the country would be in a far worse situation.

The Labour leader pointed out that the government had also agreed with the EU to either increase the pensionable age from 65 to 68 or to increase the age to 65 even for those who could have retired at 61.

Dr Muscat said that major burdens were being faced by families, who were not managing to make ends meet and could not improve their standard of living.

Labour wanted to reinstill hope in parents so that their children would be able to lead a better life.

It was only the Labour Party which could take the country out of its current crisis and help it to progress.

It would base its work on the pillars of economy, energy and education – the present government, he said, had failed in all three.

He again referred to Moody's downgrade and said that what Moody's had told Malta, Maltese families had known for a long time.

That there was no major unemployment, Dr Muscat said, was no thanks to the government but to businessmen who in the past two years showed a corporate social responsibility and held on to their workers even though times were bad. These people were the recipe for the future.

He noted that the country's debt had never increased at an alarming rate as much as in the past three years.

While Labour used to operate with a surplus budget and had a debt level of 12 per cent of GDP, this government had increased the debt level to nearly 90 per cent. This meant that Maltese families were paying more than half a million euros in interest on debt daily.

On divorce, Dr Muscat said he was informed that the courts were not yet given resources to handle mediation as debated in parliament.

“This is two weeks before the law is introduced,” Dr Muscat said.