Vol. 558 No. 3
60 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if he recently met a delegation from Cork County Council and informed the delegation that the cost of meeting pay commitments under the benchmarking process would have to be met from the council's own resources and that there would be no funding from his Department to enable local authorities to pay benchmarking awards; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23882/02]
I did not convey the position suggested in the question to the delegation from Cork County Council with whom I recently met. It is my intention to notify local authorities of their 2003 general purpose allocations from the local government fund over the next couple of weeks. I intend that allocations will take into account the increasing costs facing local authorities and the ability of authorities to meet such costs from local sources.
It is right that local authorities, in managing their affairs and framing their budgets for 2003, should have regard to the particular requirement at this time for sound and responsible financial management and should take appropriate decisions to balance their expenditure against income from central and local own sources.
