Vol. 537 No. 5
403 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the advice he is giving to local authorities regarding businesses which may find it difficult to pay their rates in 2001 due to hardship caused by the foot and mouth crisis; the assistance he is planning to make available either directly or indirectly to such businesses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17087/01]
The levying and collection of rates are matters for each individual local authority. Section 2 of the Local Government (Rates) Act, 1970, provides for schemes to be made by rating authorities for the waiver of rates in certain circumstances. I have allocated £437 million in general purpose grants to local authorities through the Local Government Fund. This represents an increase of 18% over the 2000 allocation. There are no additional funds at my disposal at the present time to provide further grants for general purposes.
