Govt presents 500 Plus programme for first-born children

PM Mateusz Morawiecki and Labour and Family Minister Elzbieta Rafalska on Tuesday presented a plan for extending Poland's 500 Plus benefits programme to first-born children. Under present laws, only second and further children are eligible for the benefit. Morawiecki and Rafalska, in Rybie (central Poland) on Tuesday, met with children and parents at one of the town's community centers, and announced that internet applications for the benefits programme, that will be extended to first-born children, would be accepted from July 1, and paper-version applications from August 1. "We're starting off this project, with social consultations, and I think that it will be very well received," Morawiecki said. He added that the 500 Plus scheme is a long-term investment which would generate huge returns in the forms of children's health and education, and called it, "the biggest investment of the past 30 years, or maybe even 130 years."