Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

The figures are obviously based, in most cases, on some semblance of audit and reality. That gives us a good basis for clarifying the situation relative to the €1 billion that was being touted by an economist on the radio some months back. I hope his economic statistics are more accurate that his roads' figures. We normally give the local authorities permission to spend the equivalent of 10% of the previous year's allocation in the first few months of the current year before they receive their formal allocation. This year, however, we have allowed them, if they wish, to go as high as 25% of that allocation to deal with the emergency situation.

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