Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the additional funding for those local authorities that would have been categorised as self-financing. In the case of Dublin city, that will amount to about €19 million in extra funding. I say extra, but this is money raised in Dublin city being retained in Dublin city. It is always difficult to get excited about additional funding for local authorities because in the past, what one hand has given, the other has taken away. I know many people who have spent a lot of time in local authorities and who find it very difficult to have transparency over the total amount of funding coming from the Department in any one year. This is something the Minister has seen. It is very difficult to track down all the different streams of funding coming into a local authority and to see whether the overall amount is more or less and whether money that is retained - perhaps through LPT - is not in some way diverted for other ring-fenced or protected funds such as those relating to roads, etc. Could the Minister clarify that the €19 million is new and additional? Has he given consideration to how we might help local authority members understand matters a bit better, particularly in the interests of transparency?