Who needs Ferrero Rocher when you have a personal chef? A lavish restoration, including the addition of a professional kitchen and an apartment for a live-in chef, at the Irish ambassador’s residence in the Hague cost almost €3m to construct and furnish, it has emerged.

The project included the addition of a two-vehicle car port, constructed “entirely out of steel plates and placed on the site in one piece”.

Costs for the works, released under the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act, show that the refurbishment, with the restoration of a new embassy office building in the Scheveningen neighbourhood of the Hague, add up to more than €7m.

At the ambassador’s residence, the cook’s quarters, a self-contained apartment, had to be placed partially underground because of planning restrictions at the 8,000sq ft traditional-style Dutch house in Wassenaar, a wealthy suburb of the Hague. The extension was by VMX Architects, an Amsterdam practice headed by Don Murphy, an Irish architect, over two years.

Pics here:
http://www.vmxarchitects.nl/project_375.html

Execution 2006-2007

So how do you get to be ambassador? Is it a jobs for the boys lark?? Is this Berties backup plan when he gets doors slammed in the face of his mayoral campaign.

At least we get something nice for our 7 mill. With the DDDA all we got was a contaminated hole in the ground.

Now the question as to why we need ambassadors within the EU ...

Work your way up through the Dept of Foreign Affairs. They are high ranking civil servants. Obviously deserving of palatial digs.

This is the sort of shit the Public Accounts Committee should be having for breakfast, not journos hoping to get lucky on FoI requests.

7 million budget?

typically architects fees are 15%, that's a cool 1 million of taxpayers cash for the well-connected architect.

I'm sure he was only interested in the write-up in Architectural Review. Artists are not into money.

7 million budget?

typically architects fees are 15%, that's a cool 1 million of taxpayers cash for the well-connected architect.

Actually, no! The architects/engineers got 435k for their work (about 6%). Not bad really, especially when you consider that the architects on the Irish Embassy revamp in Lisbon got 530k on a 1.25 million euro job. That's not far off 42.5%. Worth every cent, no doubt.

THE final cost of the Dail's new shop has risen to a staggering €1.3m, according to figures obtained by the Irish Independent.

The glass-framed kiosk shop at the main gate of Leinster House on Kildare Street amounts to roughly 40sq m (431sq ft) in size, and must surely rank as the most expensive tuck shop ever built in Ireland.

Don Murphy, an Irish architect, over two years.

Now the question as to why we need ambassadors within the EU ...