I will begin where the Taoiseach ended. I welcome what I read in this morning's media, which has since been confirmed to the House by the Taoiseach, namely, the establishment of a new infrastructure fund of €200 million to bring unserviced sites into use for housing. I seek some clarity about the fund. Is this new money to be accounted for on or off-balance sheet?

The Taoiseach will recall the allocation last year of €400 million from the sale of Bord Gáis Energy for use in providing social housing. The difficulty with this proposal was that, under the Stability and Growth Pact and the fiscal parameters, we were unable to provide and spend this money without breaching the fiscal rules. Where stands this €400 million? Is it to be expended or is it still parked and not being brought into use?

The decision taken this morning was to approve a €200 million local infrastructure development fund. This will require estimated additional amounts of €70 million in 2017, €100 million in 2018 and €30 million in 2019.

Is the €70 million for this year?

That is in respect of the €200 million, which will be funded by €150 million from the Exchequer matched by a €50 million local authority contribution. It is Exchequer money and, therefore, on-balance sheet. It is designed because of the obvious difficulty in a number of locations, particularly in the Dublin area, where there is serious potential for building sizeable numbers of houses but the sites are inaccessible because of the requirement for road openings, bridges and whatever else. The fund is designed to allow local authorities to compete to draw money to open up such sites in order that they can build houses and deal with the supply issue, which, as Deputy Howlin knows, has been the main restriction on people securing homes. I will revert to the Deputy in respect of the expenditure of the €400 million that was allocated last year.

I want to understand this. This money will not be expended until next year. Is that what the Taoiseach is telling us now? When it is drawn down, it has to be matched by some percentage of local government money. What is that percentage? Where are the local authorities to get that money? Will only local authorities with the capacity to find matching funding be allowed to draw down that money?

Taken together during the past week we have seen announcements in the published Estimates of an additional €500 million for health, €200 million for housing, €40 million for policing and an undisclosed sum, yet to be announced, for the Department of Education and Skills. We have not seen them yet although apparently they are to be debated tomorrow. How will all of that additional expenditure impact on the expenditure benchmark? Has a new expenditure benchmark been agreed with Brussels? If so, what is that benchmark?

This week will be taken up with Estimates, which will be brought through by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin's successor. Back in April the Government informed the Commission of some adjustments to the Estimates as originally drafted.

This is on a 75% to 25% basis. The local authorities will have access to finance borrowing capacity from the Housing Finance Agency. The work will commence this year and the drawdown of that money will be next year. The figures are €17 million in 2017, €100 million in 2018 and €30 million in 2019.

There is nothing this year. Is that correct?

The work will be able to commence this year. Payment will be drawn down then for 2017. We are in a situation where we have now identified a number of sites, in particular in the greater Dublin area. It is not within the capacity of local authorities to open up these sites to allow for the construction of sizeable numbers of houses. For that reason the Government is keen to step in with a competitive fund. Local authorities will have to demonstrate that if they are looking for €5 million to open site X, it is going to give a return in housing that will reduce the demand and therefore increase the supply.

There will be nothing until next year. Is that correct?

The drawdown will not be until next year but work will commence this year.

That is impossible.

In fact, the Minister is keen to expedite this process so that work can start as soon as possible.