Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

I stayed silent while the Senator was speaking but he can heckle if he wants. He said that we squander money and spoke about providing for the less well-off. In 2002 the money spent on housing was not squandered because it provided housing for those very people.

Contrary to what the Opposition would say, the funding of local government has undergone a transformation in recent years. The Government is more than proud of its record in this area since we entered office in 1997. In 1998, we set up the local government fund as a ring-fenced source of funding for local government. In 2003, general purpose allocations of over €626 million were made from the fund, an unprecedented level of funding. With the growth of the fund we have been able to increase general purpose grants to local authorities by 85% since 1997. In 2003, the fund provided €394 million towards non-national roads, a doubling of grants since 1997.

The budget saw the provision of an additional €30 million for the Exchequer contribution to the local government fund for 2004. Yesterday my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, announced a €752 million funding package for local authorities for next year, an increase of 14% on 2003.