Vol. 575 No. 4
70 Mr. McCormack asked the Minister for the Environment Heritage and Local Government if he will make available to local authorities the necessary funds to ensure that they will be able to pay the benchmarking awards for 2004 without having to raise further local charges or cut back on essential services. [28421/03]
89 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for the Environment Heritage and Local Government when the financial allocation for each local authority for 2004 will be announced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28435/03]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 70 and 89 together.
As indicated in reply to Priority Questions Nos. 41 and 44 on today's Order Paper, local authorities fund their expenditure, including expenditure on pay, from a variety of sources including specific State grants, commercial rates, rents, fees and charges for services and general purpose grants from the local government fund. The issue of benchmarking costs in 2004, as with other current expenditure demands will fall to be dealt with by local authorities in the context of their annual budgetary process.
The recently published Abridged Estimates volume, (AEV), indicates that an amount of €1.118 billion will be available to the local government fund in 2004 – an increase of approximately €38 million over the amount of expenditure being made available from the fund this year. As I also indicated, these are not the full extent of the resources which I anticipate will be available to me for the local government fund. I am satisfied that the increases to be provided in general purpose grants from the fund will make an appropriate contribution to meeting the increased costs of local authorities in 2004 and will obviate the need for any undue increases in rates, fees and other local charges in 2004.
I expect to notify authorities of these allocations within the next week or so.
