asked the Minister for the Environment (a) the estimated cost of sewerage and water schemes under way nationally; (b) the 1986 Estimate for these schemes; and (c) how he intends to make up the shortfall.

The total cost of the design and construction of the water and sewerage schemes under construction in 1986 is estimated to be about £407 million. It is normal practice that many such schemes be designed and constructed over a period of years and the expenditure expected to arise in relation to them in 1986 is estimated to be about £85 million, of which £77 million will be met from the Public Capital Programme provision and the balance of about 10 per cent, in accordance with established practice, from temporary overdraft facilities.

There is, therefore, no basis for the suggestion that the difference between the total cost of the schemes and the expenditure arising in 1986 represents a shortfall.

It is temporary overdraft facility. Is that going to be made up and will it not be made up by a Supplementary Estimate to the local authorities? For example, the local authority of which I have the honour of being chairman has a considerable shortfall in work that is under way — not in design and construction but in the actual work that is under way compared with the allocation they got from the Minister's Department.

This is the normal practice employed by local authorities in the operation of the sanitary services programme generally. Local authorities have the facility to operate up to 10 per cent and that facility will, on the figures I have given, mean that the accommodation of the PCP provision and the local authority temporary overdraft facility will more than meet the expenditure this year. A local authority then can, as is normal, at the beginning of the next financial year in January, draw down the amount equivalent to set off their overdraft balance at the end of this year.

Just as it is?

No, the PCP provision is £77 million and the estimate of total cost of works this year is £85 million, so that 10 per cent on £77 million will bring us up to just exactly the overall figure.

It is undercalculated, underestimated.

Perhaps the problem is that the Deputy feels that too much work has been sanctioned for execution in his local authority area.

When is the Minister going to sanction the schemes for our constituency?

The Deputy should not be too avaricious about his own area. He can rest assured that we will look after it for him.

In the same way as taking money off Tallaght.