22/12/2003
Archived item. This item is published here for historical reasons. The information below may be out of date.
Ahern Announces €3.8m in Extra Funding for Dublin Local Authorities
Mr Noel Ahern TD, Minister for Housing and Urban Renewal, today (22 December), announced that Dublin local authorities would be major beneficiaries from a special €8m fund his Department is making available to help local councils with operating costs on new water and sewerage schemes. "Between them, Dublin City and Fingal County Council will receive an additional allocation of almost €3.8m towards these running expenses next year", the Minister said.
To ensure that Ireland fully complies with stringent EU obligations on drinking water quality and sewage treatment standards, over €4.4bn has been provided under the National Development Plan for new and upgraded water and wastewater facilities. The Minister said that "the Government's huge investment on the many high quality treatment plants now becoming operational is being underpinned by the provision of specific funding to help local authorities to operate and maintain them to the highest standards".
Under the Government's water services pricing policy framework, the cost of providing water services for commercial users is recovered by local authorities in a transparent way directly from these users. Costs associated with the domestic sector are met from the Local Government Fund. This policy is being progressively implemented in the period up to 2006. "Pending full implementation of the policy framework, the extra €8m will greatly help local authorities to meet the additional running costs they will face next year", the Minister added.
"Dublin City Council has been allocated €3.277m from the special fund towards the running costs of the Ringsend Wastewater and the Ballymore Eustace Water Treatment schemes. Fingal will receive close on €0.5m for the Bog-of-the-Ring Water and the Malahide and Swords Wastewater schemes", the Minister concluded. "These allocations will be a very significant help to the two Councils in preparing their 2004 Estimates".
The operating costs of older water and sewerage schemes are funded from the general purposes grants allocated to local authorities by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government under the Local Government Fund. Record general purposes grants of €752m for 2004 were announced by the Department recently.