The Labour Party had over the past 10 years pointed out repeatedly that the Nationalist Party was drastically and systematically eroding the children’s allowances, introduced by the Labour government of the 70s, Karl Chircop, MLP spokesman on social protection said.

The Nationalist Party had introduced the means test for the allowance in the 1990s, he added. Subsequently the biggest expenditure on this benefit was made by Alfred Sant’s government in 1997, when the allowance had cost Lm20.5 million.

Since then the Nationalist government had whittled it away and the expenditure had declined to Lm12.5 million this year. Over a period of 10 years the Nationalist government had saved Lm49.2 million on this benefit, Dr Chircop said.

This was money denied to families who had under-16s to bring up. In the children’s allowance only, the Nationalist government had saved almost one fourth of the social budget.

This meant it had deceived an entire generation of Maltese and Gozitan children. Now, because the election was close, the Nationalist Party will be giving back to the children 10 per cent only of what it had deprived them since 1997.