Govt's birth-rate efforts already having impact - Meloni

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 22 - Premier Giorgia Meloni said Friday that her government's commitment to help families and reverse Italy's declining birth rate was already having positive effects.
    "There are people who have decided to bring a child into the world this year because today they see the institutions as being more attentive to the issue of the family," Meloni said in her Christmas message to staff at the premier's office at Palazzo Chigi.
    "When we talk about government, about politics, we always talk about numbers. "But we don't deal with numbers, we deal with people's lives, their hopes, their opportunities, their possibilities." Meloni has said that reversing Italy's declining birth rate is among her government's top priorities, with the 2024 budget bill allocating 2.5 billion euros to addressing this issue.
    The budget includes measures for nurseries, tax breaks for firms that give working mothers permanent job contracts and payment of the social-security contributions of women who have two children or more.
    Meloni, who gave the message via video-link, has had to cancel or postpone her engagements of the last few days because of flu.
    (ANSA).