Vol. 559 No. 1
430 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the funding he is providing to Meath County Council for 2003 in view of the fact that this council was unable to carry out any essential maintenance repairs or provide central heating to its council tenants due to insufficient funds in the 2002 budget; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25880/02]
The Deputy will be aware that the amount of funding available to local authorities through general purpose grants from the local government fund to support their day-to-day activities has grown to record levels over the past few years. Allocations of €626.253 million in general purpose grants have been made by my Department to local authorities for 2003. In the case of Meath County Council an amount of €17,792,092 in general purpose grants has been allocated for 2003 an increase of over 83% on its initial 1997 allocation and an increase of 5.7% on its 2002 baseline allocation.
Expenditure arising as a result of housing maintenance and improvement costs is a matter for local authorities in the context of the determination of its annual budgets. Such expenditure is funded from a variety of sources, including the local government fund and other State grants, rates, fees and charges.
