In the last decade, Malta experienced healthy economic growth. Many are better off economically, but many others have been socially marginalised and excluded from this prosperity. Poverty, the most visible form of social deprivation, remains persistently high.

Poverty can be defined in different ways. Social deprivation may be a better term to describe how individual members of society fail to benefit from healthy interaction with the rest of the community because of mental illness, poverty, poor education and socioeconomic status.

A few months before the 2013 election, Labour leader Joseph Muscat said his party was committed to eradicating poverty. He claimed that the 88,000 at risk of poverty at the time was unacceptable. Today, those at risk of poverty amount to nearly 80,000, a slight improvement but nowhere near what it should be in a country that has experienced above-average economic growth in the last decade.

The hallmark of Muscat’s almost seven-year administration will certainly not be one that proves a success in social inclusion in its different aspects.

There have undoubtedly been a number of successes like the acknowledgement of rights for the LGBT community. But in many other areas of social inclusion strategy, failures are evident.

Like many other western countries, Malta has seen the phenomenon of the working poor increase at a worrying rate. Unemployment statistics may be at record low levels but those who are at risk of poverty even though in employment should be a concern for any government.

The high cost of property deprives many of renting a decent home for their family. Yet, in the last few years, rather than improving the skills and working conditions for the low-skilled, low-paid workers, the government has adopted a strategy of mass importation of cheap labour mainly from third world countries. This policy is creating even more social problems by exposing both local and foreign workers to social deprivation.

Pensioners are one of the more significant elements of those at risk of poverty. While the national pension has been adjusted regularly, little has been done in the last decade to ensure that further pensions reforms are undertaken to prevent retirement exposing more people to social and economic deprivation in the future.

Investment in social capital includes the upgrading of medical services for those who can only have access to the public health system. One area of evident under-investment in health services is the mental health sector. The state of the only mental health hospital in Malta has deteriorated in the last decade, thereby subjecting mental health patients and their families to undeserving humiliation.

How can we speak of achievements in social cohesion when the weak and vulnerable are treated as though they belong to the human scrapyard?

The last decade has seen little evidence of success in breaking the poverty trap – a state where poverty tends to persist due to self-reinforcing mechanisms.

There is an undeniable link between undernourishment, lack of access to affordable housing, a degraded environment and educational achievement.

While marginal improvements have been recorded in the last decade in educational attainment as the number of early school leavers has decreased, we still feature in the lowest levels of educational achievement in the EU.

The poor will always be with us, but we can do much more to reduce social deprivation.