Premier Vasile Tarlev urged the Ministry of Social Protection, Family and Child to increase birth allowances offered to families that are already looking after two or more children, Info-Prim Neo reports. The Premier made this request at a Government meeting this week. Vasile Tarlev also demanded that parental allowances for raising children of one and a half years until 16 years of age be also raised, considering the sums paid at present as being too small. This year, the lump-sum childbirth allowance is worth 1,200 lei for the first-born child and 1,500 lei for each subsequent child. In 2007 the allowance was 1,000 lei and in 2006 – 800 lei. Monthly benefits for looking after children younger than one and a half years are 100 lei for uninsured persons and 150 lei for insured persons. This amount did not change in the last two years. The size of allowance for raising a child from 1.5/3 years to the age of 16 is 50 lei, both for insured and uninsured persons. The Government this week also approved amendments to the Regulations on setting and paying allowances to families with children, which are to be published soon in the Official Gazette. The Regulations stipulate who are the beneficiaries of allowances, who are the insured persons, types and amount of allowances paid to families with children, conditions and way of establishing the allowances, way of payment. In addition, the Regulations set the way for the calculation and payment of allowances for imprisoned mothers.