Irena Degutienė

Irena Degutienė (born 1 June 1949 in Šiauliai, Lithuanian SSR, Soviet Union) is a Lithuanian politician and member of the conservative Homeland Union, currently Deputy Speaker of Seimas. She was twice the acting Prime Minister of Lithuania, first from 4 May 1999 to 18 May 1999 and then from 27 October 1999 to 3 November 1999. She has also been the Minister for Social Security and Labour from 1996 to 2000. In 1978, she graduated from Vilnius University with a degree in medicine. For almost twenty years, she worked in Vilnius Red Cross Hospital before becoming a secretary in the Ministry of Health in 1994. In 1996, she was elected to Seimas and re-elected in 2000.

On 15 September 2009 Irena Degutienė became Speaker of Seimas, a position she held until 14 September 2012. She is the first woman to hold such position in Lithuania's history.

In 2017, Eligijus Masiulis 250-thousand-euro bribery scandal sparked one of the largest corruption investigations in Lithuania's history. Secret surveillance by VSD revealed that MG Baltic, a Lithuanian conglomerate, has been exerting influence and systematically bribing prosecutors, politicians and government bureaucrats. Irena Degutienė is implicated in the corruption scandal – MG Baltic preferred and favoured her nomination as head of her political party.

National Honours

•  Lithuania Grand Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great (July 6 2019)