In the current geopolitical situation, it is particularly important to honour the fighters who died for Lithuania, according to the Social Democrat minister.
"There are certain sacred things that we must find money for to do the job we must do," Birutis told ELTA on Monday.
The minister said the previous government should have found the funds to build a columbarium memorial.
"It is a scandal. They are lying like this, discovered and unburied – it is unbelievable. Cleary, the Government should have found the money for that. The municipality would probably contribute as well," said Birutis.
"I find it strange that this has not been done so far. It is even stranger that I have not seen that the previous Government would have foreseen that in the budget," he added.
Former Government Chancellor Giedrė Balčytytė earlier told ELTA that the Cabinet had not been properly informed about the situation in Leipalingis. In addition, the Government would not have had a legal basis to directly allocate funds to individual municipal projects, she observed.
The remains of more than 40 freedom fighters have been kept in cardboard coffins in the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania (LGGRTC) for over the past three years as the Government did not allocate funds to establish a memorial.
A special commission set up in the Druskininkai Municipality had asked the Government for funding to bury the remains but was denied it, the centre said. Balčytytė told ELTA the Government did not give that response to the municipality.
"The law sets out that municipalities are responsible for such reburials," Rimantas Zagreckas, spokesman for the LGGRTC, told ELTA.
The project is estimated to cost around EUR 150,000.
Not all the remains have been identified yet, according to Zagreckas.