Updated 5.20pm - Added PN statement

Adrian Delia's claim that poverty is on the rise was completely wrong and could not be taken seriously, the Labour Party said on Monday. 

In a statement, the PL noted that the EU Commission's latest report on Malta gave the lie to the PN leader's claims that poverty had increased from 81,000 to 85,000 during Labour's time in government. 

The EU report noted that Malta is doing "relatively well" on social indicators, with "poverty and social exclusion risks declined to levels last seen in 2008”. It nevertheless cautioned that some groups, especially single-earner households and low-skilled workers, remained at significant risk of poverty. 

In its statement, the PL delved deeper into the numbers cited by Dr Delia.

"The number of people at risk of poverty or social exclusion stood at 81,000 in 2008 but rose to 99,000 by 2013," the Labour Party said. "Between 2013 and 2016 it went back down and now stands at 85,000." 

That meant, the PL said, that the number of people at risk of poverty had actually declined by 14,000 in just three years.

"Adrian Delia is either incapable of reading statistics, or else is out to deceive," the PL said, adding that while PN governments had raised the retirement age and instituted a pensions freeze, the PL had increased pensions for three consecutive years. 

'PL admits it has failed to eradicate poverty' - PN

Reacting, the PN said that the PL was not itself admitting that Joseph Muscat had "failed to eradicate poverty in Malta, as he had promised." 

"More than 20,000 elderly people are struggling to make ends meet," the PN said. "Thousands more are feeling the pinch of exorbitant rental prices." 

"In his 2013 electoral manifesto, Joseph Muscat had vowed to work to eradicate both visible and hidden poverty once and for all within his first legislature."