Government plans to expand regional first-home support programme

Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius said on Thursday that the government would propose significantly increasing funding for a programme supporting first-home purchases in the regions and introducing a universal school-preparation allowance. LRT reported the plans after a meeting with governing coalition partners in the Seimas.

Funding for the regional first-home programme would rise to 50 million euros a year, Sinkevičius said. He said the higher funding should prevent the money from running out within minutes of applications opening, as had happened in the past.

The government will also propose a one-off payment of about 140 euros for children preparing for school and primary school pupils to buy school supplies. The payment would be universal and would not depend on family income.

The allowance is currently provided as social assistance to lower-income families and amounts to two basic social benefit payments, or 148 euros.

The government has not yet decided whether there should be a cap on childcare leave payments or what the cap should be. The current limit is equal to two average wages. Sinkevičius proposed doubling it to four average wages, but coalition partners also discussed abolishing the cap altogether.

If the cap were removed, the average salary used to calculate the payment could be based on a longer period, such as two or three years, the prime minister said. Further discussions will cover both the cap and the size of childcare payments linked to a parent’s salary before the child’s birth.

These measures are part of a family support package that Social Security and Labour Minister Inga Ruginienė is due to present later on Thursday. Implementing the plan will eventually require nearly 770 million euros, although not all nine measures would take full effect next year.

Seimas Speaker Juozas Olekas said the main challenge would be the pace of implementation and the cost to public finances. The first bills related to the package are expected to reach the Seimas at the start of its autumn session.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, leader of the Democratic Union For Lithuania, said the package would include support for children born with disabilities and premature babies, as well as free meals through the fourth grade.

He said the measures would promote equal treatment at school by ensuring that children were not differentiated according to whether they received free meals. He also said the package should send families a message that every child matters and that financial circumstances should not be a barrier to having children.

Virginijus Sinkevičius added that family policy could not focus solely on payments. In his view, every area of policy should contribute to encouraging the birth rate, and improving demographics would also require a cultural shift in which families with children became a priority.