I refer reference to the article titled ‘National minimum wage’ by Claudia Cuschieri, from the Ministry for the Family, Children’s Rights and Social Solidarity (February 7) in reply to my comments on pensioners and the national minimum wage (February 1).

She speaks of inaccuracies, which I prefer to call misunderstandings. As soon as I received an e-mail from the director general at the Social Security Department about the inaccurate rate of minimum wage, I immediately wrote to this newspaper to carry a correction.

In fact, a correction was published on February 8. Furthermore, I also explained why the euro increase awarded in terms of the legal notice was not included.

If Cuschieri was proactive and wrote about the €1 increase when the legal notice was published, the inaccuracies or misunderstandings could have been avoided. The above can be considered as a storm in a tea cup or, better, a storm over €1.

There are many other priorities on pensions that should be addressed in the interests of pensioners. For example, Cuschieri should start a campaign on the media about the changes brought about by the pension reform and by the amendments carried out in the Social Security Act whereby, we now have two categories of pensioners: category A embracing those born on or after January 1, 1962 and category B comprising those born on December 31, 1961 and before.

Present pensioners and those who attain pensionable age in the future who fall under category B have a right to be informed about the situation and that the rates of pension applicable in their case will be lower than those paid to category A.

These are my last comments on the minimum wage issue.