Local authorities receive a total combined annual capital allocation from my Department in respect of the disabled persons and essential repairs grant schemes and house purchase and improvement loans. The allocation of funds between the various schemes is a matter for individual authorities in the light of local circumstances. My Department's funding of the disabled persons grant scheme relates to the recoupment of up to two thirds of local authority expenditure on the payment of individual grants. The grant scheme is also funded at local authority level from the authorities' own resources and within the amounts included for that purpose in the local authorities' own estimates of expenditure. While it is open to a local authority to seek a higher allocation from my Department in the event of increased demand under the scheme, an increased capital allocation would not, of itself, allow increased expenditure by a local authority without a corresponding upward revision of the authority's own provision for expenditure under the scheme.