Mr. David Cooney:

The arrangements differ between embassies. Some embassies employ live-in staff who do the cleaning. When I was in London and New York, there were no live-in staff but cleaners came in. It depends on which arrangement is the most convenient. It does not make a difference in terms of cost. Out of the 73 missions abroad, 21 have full-time cooks. The cost of these 21 cooks is €430,000, which works out at not much more than €20,000 per head. That is not bad value. If one does not have a full-time cook, one has to hire in cooks, which is much more expensive in many cases because the individual concerned will usually be a professional chef. In my experience, there is better value in having a full-time cook. One can certainly get more output from a full-time cook than from spending the same amount of money hiring people on an occasional basis.