One of the great successes of this Government has been the creation of the local government fund which is ring-fenced as a source of funding for local government and is the key to the transformation that we are seeing in housing. The fund is financed from the proceeds of motor tax with the indexed Exchequer contribution. The fund has made over €1 billion available to local authorities in 2003 and will make over €1.2 billion available in 2004. Generally, the 2003 general purpose allocation of over €626 million was made from the fund. This transfers to local authorities adequate resources to enable them to provide day to day services, which is unprecedented. The amount being made available in 2004 is €752 million, an average increase of 14%, more than four times the expected rate of inflation. This buoyancy in the fund has enabled the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, to increase general purpose grants to local authorities by approximately 85% since the coalition came into office in 1997.